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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon 



Books by 
JAAES CLOYD BOWAAN 



The Gift of White Roses 

(Second Revised Edition) 

A tragedy in which the village gives of its young man- 
hood and its young womanhood unto 
Organized Vice. 

PRICE POSTPAID 50 CENTS 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon 

The romance of a youthful Knight who 

dreamed a prodigious dream of 

world conquest. 

PRICE POSTPAID $1.00 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon 



By 

JAAES CLOYD BOWAAN 



■"He was a verray parfit gentil Hnyght" 

— Chaucer, 




COLUMBUS, OHIO 
THE PFEIFER PRESS 






Copyright 1913 

by 

James Cloyd Bowman 



GEC 3i 1313 

(r.. n A Q n 1 r; a q 



TO THE AULTIPLIED THOUSANDS 
EVERYWHERE WHO HAVE TOILED 
OVER LAND AND OVER SEA THE 
WORLD AROUND IN QUEST OF 
THE HOLY GRAIL THIS STORY 
IS DEDICATED 



•u 



FOREWORD 



Romance is as much alive as ever. We hate to 
admit it. We prefer very much our earthen gods of 
materialism and our pretended physical comforts. But 
the fact remains, that the world was never more bored 
with its commonplace self than today. Our religions, 
our laws, our educational systems, our social stand- 
ards, — everything, is in a state of ferment. If a man 
but sleep soundly over night, he must needs awaken 
to find himself outclassed by some visionary who has 
not slept at all. To be a conservative is to be a decade 
behind the times. We are — if such a thing were pos- 
sible — more greedy for the new and the sensational 
than were the Greeks. 

Poetry, too, is as much alive as ever. This we refuse 
to admit. Instead, we revel in the far away happy times 
of Merry England, when every bush had its songster, 
and when life was one long roundelay of ready wit. 
Yet, more poetry is intelligently and feelingly read today 
than ever before. And more poetry, too, is sifting into 
our common workaday world than ever before. We are 
coming to dress for the eye, to eat for the palate, to 
live for the insatiable sensations. Our only trouble is 
that we are not yet so far removed from the obsolete 
dominance of physical science but that we are still 



afraid to expose our shivering souls to the stifling gaze 
of the noisy realists. 

These facts find expression in the youthful Knight who 
haltingly treads the measures of this romance. Naive 
and visionary, he is not aware that he can never stake 
his dreams to a sod foundation. He treads upon thin 
air and believes it granite. He knocks his head against 
the merest vapor and believes it adamant. Like every 
romantic poet, who has weathered in our unkindly climes, 
he rapidly frets his soul to tatters. 

The life of this Knight, together with the thousands 
of his fellows who have slipped unseen from our shores 
to help quicken the fossilized races of the East into 
modern life, will be frescoed in letters of gold, when 
the epic of Awakening China is finally written. We 
shall then comprehend that the Anghcizing of the Orient 
has been accomplished while we have slumbered and 
slept. We shall then turn long enough from our mili- 
tarism and our commercialism to understand, perchance, 
that the great awakenings of this world must of neces- 
sity ever come about through the changing — not the 
outer — but of the inner man. 



J. C. B. 



Ames, Iowa, November, 1913. 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon 



Love sighing tripped adown the limpid lake, 
Whither two lovers facing dreamed and smiled. 
Their blithe canoe, lapping smooth lily pads, 
Rocked lightly to the rhythm of the waves. 
The day departing shed its peace serene; 
And in his ethered stride, majestically 
The sun went loitering down the lengthening evening, 
And smiling cast an high and holy hush 
Over the brow of the thankful worshipful world, 
As beaming in luxury, he turned his face 
An touched the heavens with myriad flooded splendors. 
The fleecy feathery clouds, alight with passion. 
Ambled as noiselessly as inward nuns. 
With thoughts too deep and hidden for the earth; 
The trees stood tiptoe with their upturned heads 
Aflame with light; the birds made melody; 
The shadows flitted in and out the wood 
Like fairy lovers dancing wingedly; 
The flowers perfumed the nuptial bed of spring: 
Nature upon all sides afire pursued 
The guileless newborn spirit-child of June; 
The meanest clod leapt up into a soul. 
And blindly felt the breathings of the season. 
And knew that life and love walked now abroad. 
Silently a star awoke as twilight fell. 

9 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 
Yes, Lillian, far away my sail is set, 
Where June eternally reigns unperturbed. 

Thus laughed the lover in a buoyant mood, 
Trying to chase away the hidden prick 
Of fear. 

Lillian: 
You dream — Why not awake? — The week 
So soon to come will fling us far apart, — 
Me to my distant mountain home, and you 
Upon the plains. 

Jean: 
I do not dream. New life 
Has overwhelmed my waking startled spirit. 
My journey you must know; it may not chance 
An opportunity again will come 
Before we part. — A dreamy nestling lake, 
A pearly dewdrop on Wisconsin's breast, 
A jewel clasped between her vernal hills, 
Geneva, whose open soul betrays its depths; 
It drinks in all the varied splendors thrown 
Above it in the airy sky of heaven. 
With scarce a trace or taint of nether earth; 
Within its welling bosom pristine springs 
Flow constantly, and cleansing purify. 
It is a lake of many minds and moods. 
In constant change beneath the elements; 



I 



10 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Always the same yet ever different; 

In every mind and mood most beautiful. 

Here gather every June a company 

Of rugged men, the best and reddest blood 

The colleges of fifteen states can offer, 

Men of muscle, men of mind and men 

Of morals, men of many moods and minds; 

But yet in every mind and mood still men. 

They come to camp within the vernal wood; 

To feel the eyes of all the infinite stars 

Above them keeping vigil while they slumber; 

To catch a vision of life's rightful sphere; 

To gain control of their arch enemy. 

The ego, to master passion, yea, to form 

A purpose dominant, commensurate 

With life's full waiting opportunities; 

To look the future in the open face. 

And flinch not under any cost, if work 

And duty strike them squarely on the breast; 

To plan as does the skillful architect 

Upon the eve of building, so that space 

And time may all be utilized, so that 

The structure, when it rears its stately form 

Against the elements, may stand unique 

In unity complete, and challenge change; 

So that the builder satisfied may say, 

This is the best that in this given space 

Could be constructed; my eye is satisfied. 



U 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Lillian : 
A real dream, but what has it to do 
With all the poesy of sunny climes 
That you are entering your life upon? 

Jean: 
I fear to tell you, Lillian; you will think 
Me but a passive feather, drifting here 
And there, whichever way the wind may blow, 
Never quite sure of anything in life. 
Once, you remember, when I let you see 
The inner lining of my future hopes: 
A happy peaceful dew-kissed sun-crowned hill, 
Capped with a cosy cottage built for four. 
Shaded with elms and fanned with breezes fresh 
In clover secrets, and a rolling farm 
Borne down with all the vintage of the year; 
A gleeful girl with burnished yellow tresses, 
Trailing the sunshine whithersoe'er she passed. 
The miniature reflection of her mother. 
Who with silvery voice and cheery spirit, changed earth 
To paradise; a rougish boy, with eye 
Like to the buckeye when the autumn frosts 
Reveal its fruitage, full of elfish pranks, 
A real boy, to set the house in uproar. 
And to fill the aging years with youth and joy. 
And then I read this bit of verse to you: 



12 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



I've an empty bower on yonder hill, 
With windows wide and door ajar, 
Awaiting a songster from afar; 

It is furnished fit for any queen; 

About it the flowers play hide and seek 
As they trip the loitering laughing breeze 
Which scampers among the fruit-laden trees; 
At the foot of the hill, a brook with its song 
Goes threading the grain-burdened fields along. 

Around my bower on yonder hill 
Are songsters young and songsters rare. 
Are songsters sweet and wondrous fair; 
And they sing to me out of their sunny souls, 
And laughingly glance with their roguish eyes, 
As they half invite themselves to my bower; 
And then in a fit, scold hour after hour. 
For they think me dull and snail-like slow. 
That I do not guess what I ought to know. 

And there in my empty bower on the hill, 
I can keep one bird and only one; 
And her presence shall be as the rising sun. 

And her eyes as light as the laughing stars; 

She shall be bound, yet more than free; 

She shall pillow the wings of my soul on her breast. 

And the sweets of our joys will go ever unguessed. 

Her song is the only song I shall hear, 

And her voice, the only voice that will cheer. 
13 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And there to my bower on yonder hill, 
With its waiting door and window wide, 
Daily expecting its happy bride, — 
In the whole wide world, if every bird 
Were mine for the asking, I would ask but one; 
If that one failed to heed my voice, 
And all the others would wait my choice, 
I would bolt the door gainst every one. 
And live a hermit till life was done. 

And now that my bower on yonder hill 
Awaits that bird and her cheery song. 
Awaits in expectancy so long ; 

And now that I have found the bird, 

The only one in all the world; 
And now that she sits here close at my side 
And opens her mirthful eyes very wide; 
Will she fly to my bower this happy day. 
Flinging her spirited songs alway? 

You remember how you laughed and childlike clapped 

Your supple hands, and then assumed a frown; 

And cried a poet had at last been born. 

Though with no chance of mating in such bowers 

Since fairy-land was banished long ago. 

Since Aladdin himself with magic lamp 

Could never contemplate such winged dreams. 

And then I spun my trembling thread of hope, 

That you with sunny tresses, laughing eyes 

Were soul and sinew of my dream of dreams. 

14 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



You pouting blushed and scampered away, leaving 
Me but a doubting Thomas for my pains. 
And then you whispered when we met again, 
Your feeling was for friendship, not for love; 
And stammered, though I knew it all assumed. 

Lillian : 

Are you aware that women are mysteries 

Beyond the ken of those who trust their reason?— 

But why relate a foolish wornout story; 

Unfold this latest product of your fancy. — 

I think I comprehend; some other woman, 

The crystal lake reflected in her eyes. 

Its minds and moods how like a woman's heart. 

I knew you fickle, wherefore plied my art 

While you were gone. — I doubt not you have heard? 

Well, he is such a striking gentleman. 

And spins his daring dream with perfect grace: 

A stone-front dwelling on the avenue. 

With diamond rings and necklace, and a flood 

Of unguessed pleasures. When I laughed and blushed, 

And pouting fled indoors, he cursed his stars. 

And bit his burning lips and clenched his fists; 

Amused, I pitied from behind the screen 

His half hour agony. — My telltale mood 

Is spent; and now you think me false and cruel; 

Forget my interruption, coin your dream. 



15 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean was a figure for the sculptor's art, 
As changed to stone he heard light Lillian through. 
His eyes scanned many scenes they looked not at; 
His ears caught many sounds that never came 
From outward air, his mind groped through a maze 
He could not fully fathom or comprehend. 

Jean: 

Ah Lillian, I had never thought you thus. 
Souls can interpret rightly what they feel; 
The lips may quip and jest, but the heart never; 
The mind may try to add its sums, but souls 
By intuition reach results they know, 
Although they cannot tell what two and two 
May equal. How can I reveal to light 
What is to me more sacred than my life, 
When I well know a warbly roguish laugh 
Will set my mind in uproar and confuse 
What I by burning hours of toildrawn thought 
Alone upon the hillside with my God 
Already have decided, pledged and sworn, 
Soul answering unto pregnant soul unseen? 

Lillian : 

Is this another mask you hide behind? 
I only asked to see the naked breast 
Of your dreams. 



16 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 
But who can plan his life 
As one might cast the journey of an hour? 
Life means a home and mother. 

Lillian : 

But you have 
A mother and a home. 

Jean: 
Well plague you must, 
So do not cease; my humor I have lost 
Tonight, and dullness pricks me to the quick. 

Lillian : 
But tell about the sunny climate, Jean, 
Where all the circle of the year is June, 
And where no woman chills the air with jests. 

Jean: 

No Lillian, not tonight, another time; 

Dreams without souls lend but to fancy corpses. 

Lillian : 
But please do, Jean; a mummy I shall be; 
And if you hear me breathe, know I am dreaming; 
Tell me, for I so much want to know. 

And thus the woman, curious as of old, 

Drew from the man unwillingly his dream. 

17 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 

A sunny climate, did you say; yes, winter 

Never breathes on that far China town, 

Hoary with the history of centuries. 

Enslaved in sin six thousand years and more; 

Groping but blindly for a God to break 

Its shackles and remove the weight that lies 

Upon its weakened will; to recreate 

Again the imprint of His character 

Upon its faded features, and drive out 

Its wretched poverty and devilish filth. 

A humble modest dwelling with meager rooms, 

Adorned but poorly, with no show of wealth; 

No diamond there except the sparkling eye 

Deep wrought with truth and service for the race. 

Thus set down in heathendom, without 

The opportunities our world-famed land 

Of freedom breathes upon her native born 

Each day for their contentment and enjoyment; 

A land where long-drawn years of dogged study 

Must be consumed to gain the point of view 

Of its queer people and their language learn 

That one may lead them out of their drawn shells 

Of fossilized tradition into truth; 

A life given up to service and to toil, 

Much harassed with failure and discouragement, 

Perchance to end in martyrdom; a life 

Of hardship, yet a life of rare deep joy. 

Such as a selfish mind cannot conceive, 

18 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



For service ever has its mystic halo, 
Though unseen by vulgar eyes. 

Lillian : 

Enough ! 
A sort of fabled Knight of the Chinese Dragon! 
You? — Absurdity should curb itself! 
I wish I had not drawn from you this dream. 

And thus her woman curiosity 
Had struck her dumb; she blindly groped for light. 
But Jean was now illumed, he scarcely heard 
What Lillian said. 

Jean: 

I see the Chinese heart, 

Calloused and shriveled, groping in ignorance 

Among the thousand maxims of his race, 

Starving for want of freedom and of light; 

Not knowing that the God who made his world 

And him, loves him also, with such a love 

That sin beneath its contemplation withers 

And atrophies, and hope and faith unfold 

And yield a harvest rich in loving deeds 

And full-poised life. I hope to see a few — 

Perhaps a dozen — Chinamen accept 

My God through my life's labor, and set out 

To win their fellowmen; I hope to hear 

A number thank me that I came so far 

To tell them life's sealed secret, ere I die; 

I hope to have a helpmate in that hut, 

19 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



To cast a holy joyous longing through 

The lives of all she meets; to radiate 

With sunny sweetness in a land that knows 

Not what a woman's rightful sphere may mean; 

To teach them of the loftier womanhood. 

I hope that she can ever draw the best 

And sweetest fragrance of my soul from me, 

And that I in return can draw the best 

And highest that her being holds from her; 

Thus mated, to live out the crowded years; 

And when at length the evening shadows fall. 

To lay us dawn upon that foreign soil 

In peace serene, knowing that we have done 

The best that was implanted in our lives. 

Again my little verse I bring to you; 

This is the life I had dreamed that we might live: 

It matters not 
Though the way be steep and the journey long; 

It matters not. 
Whether praise or blame bursts from the throng; 
We shall journey ever on and on, 
Across the hills, in the ruddy dawn; 
We shall bathe our cheeks in the golden wine 
Of the dewy breeze and glad sunshine; 
We shall kiss the forget-me-not's blue Dell 
As we loitering dance adown the dell; 
We shall drink the deeper of heaven's own blue 
Since I am I and you are you. 

20 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



It matters not 
Though the way be steep and the journey long; 

It matters not; 
We shall toiling sing life's olden song; 
And passing hear the growing call 
Of those who falter and those who fall; 
We shall cheer the downcast and right the wrong, 
As we spill our joys the way along; 
We shall lift the fallen and lead the blind, 
And cheer the v/eak who lag behind; 
We shall drink the health of the good and the true. 
Since I am I and you are you. 

It matters not 
Though the way be steep and the journey long; 

It matters not; 
We shall rest at length as time speeds on; 
We shall pass adown the vale bereft. 
And one be taken, the other left; 
But throughout the shade of the twilight gloom. 
Love's olden star serene will bloom, 
And the moistened eye will understand 
That the other awaits with outstretched hand, 
And will not e'en heaven alone pursue. 
Since I am I and you are you. 

And as he read, unconsciously he pulled 

The idle oar, and tore a lily bud 

From its groping stem, ere its rich chalice saw 

The light of day; unseen another bud 

21 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



He tore quite knowingly from its loose roots, 
And love went dashing on the shoals of fate, 
Not to return for many weary days. 

Lillian : 

The air is chill; let's hasten home; I wfsh 
I had not heard your story. 

Jean: 

Well, 'tis told; 
I know you think it foolish and beneath 
The high ambition of any college man. 

And so beneath the galaxy of heaven 
They hastened, Lillian leaning on Jean's arm. 
Trembling as a wounded dove lost from its mate; 
And Jean striding ungainly as a ghost, 
Soulless and white as marble. Upon the step 
They parted with a frozen courtesy. 



22 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



II 

Across the threshold of her chamber; poor girl! 

Lillian: (Alone, musing) 
What have I done? My witchery at last, 
Weak weapon of my womanhood, has quite 
Miscarried: poor belabored lies, that I 
Have piled one upon one, one upon one, 
And told my fancy he would never see; 
Poor silly subtleties, weak braggart boasts, 
Where are your clever bickerings tonight? 
How slight a gale can topple o'er a wrong 
Set sail; how meagre a lie can set two lives 
Adrift; weak men court lies, and gloat upon 
Their fair deceivers, but men of guileless lips 
Expect a woman's heart to speak the truth. 
Here I have been deluded; of all the graces 
Of our womankind, none is so charming 
As a faultless womanhood, that seeks 
No guiles, that stands with open face. 
I have so underestimated Jean; 
Roguish he is at times and full of jest; 
But he never strains tiptoe and never stoops; 
His life is clean and loyal, brave and true. 
But I have tried to hide my many faults, 
Have tried to overestimate myself 
To him, have feared he would not love me lest 
I ever tried to force him. What a fool! 

Souls interpret each other neither in jest nor lie; 

23 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



But deeper by some subtler power than mind, 
Much as the fragrance of a flower is felt. 
How weak I am! — But what is that? Midnight! 
And I here fretting like a caged bird. 
Ha! ha! I wonder what the girls would say 
If they should see my swollen eyes, my hair 
Disheveled! Ha! Ha! I will play my game; 
Jean, too, shall taste despair; he shall be jealous 
Ere the week is half worn out. 

And thus 
The war between the true and the false went on. 
Some natures have a curious temperament 
Of good and bad; some bicker against odds they know 
Are sure to overwhelm them; still they fight. 
Discretion in a woman and all the powers 
That yield deceit, belong within the head, 
Wretched the heart that feeds upon such soil. 
Lillian, when at length her burning cheek 
Touched the soft pillow, when her lips last moved 
Before she dreamed, although no one them heard. 
They wished for more of truth and womanhood, 
Though fearing they cared not what they thought they 
wished. 

Jean hastened through the street and deserted road 
Back to the covert of the placid lake. 

Where night had flown out of its unseen caves, 

And had settled so softly it touched not the ear; 

24 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



The breeze was asleep, and the moon shone clear, 
And the lake reposed 'neath its playful waves; 
It seemed to drive away all fear; 
It seemed the soul of the firmament 
Was near with flaming passion rent. 

The greatest souls, by smallest weaknesses, 

Are touched ofltimes, as the old ocean roars 

With a wilder tumult than an inland lake 

Beneath the angry eye of a clouded heaven. 

Little the lake said to him or the night. 

Had heaven frowned, and tossed the placid depths 

Of the sleeping lake into a seething mass 

Of angry foam-torn water, had the earth 

Quaked wide with yawning chasms at his feet; 

Then nature might have matched his mood and stopped 

His bursting heart, and stilled his echoing ear. 

Feeling flooded all his tingling being. 

His breast would not be hushed; it heaved 

As though the throbbing monitor of life 

Must burst its prison. He walked and ran 

And paced the shore, as a mystic in a trance. 

Unknowing what he did. When he awoke, 

The morning songsters of the rousing wood 

Had caught the promise of the new-bom day. 

And metamorphosed it to mellifluous song. 

Then he sat down in feverish fitful mood, 

Thought of the sunny hair and laughing eyes, 

Thought of the shattered dream of yesternight, 

25 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Tried hard to fit each fragment into its niche; 

As though the fractured pieces of a vase 

Could all be fitted into a vase again; 

Yet Lillian with her many faults, he loved 

More than he loved all else within the world. 

And when he had it altogether save 

One piece, it crumbled in a hopeless heap 

About his feet; he could not find the lie, 

And when he had found it, could not discover its place, 

However much he searched. Of all the tribe 

Of lies, the parent is an acted lie, 

Its meaning lies beyond the ken and wisdom, 

Of honesty. 

His rosy romance wrecked! 
Commencement week and stinging disappointment. 
Standing beneath a gnarled oak, he read 
The words of his commencement part, which seemed 
Weak, trite, and foolish, cluttered with dead men's 

bones. 
Strange how the mood oft mars the unborn deed; 
When the sun shines within, all things are bright; 
But when the storm clouds break, man's staunchest 

friend 
And strongest resource vanish and are dead. 

Then presently his dreams flew far away: 
He seemed to see his home across the plains. 
The morning hour, — with Bible on his knee. 
Plucked open at the grimy thumb-marked page, 

26 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



His father read aloud his favorite psalm; 

And kneeling then with mother side by side, 

He heard them raise their morning prayer for him, 

That God would keep him safe another week, 

And bring him home as good a boy as when 

He left for college four long years ago. 

They prayed that they might love him just the same, 

And that he might return the love they gave; 

They thanked their God for all the joys in years 

Agone, for health and plenty, and they asked 

Indulgence for a few more seasons. He saw 

Them at their breakfast, and he heard them plan 

How they might please him best, what dainties he 

Would most enjoy; the trivialities 

A loving mother's mind knows best to gladden 

Her only son. He heard a party planned 

Of all the neighborhood, for all were happy 

That he at last was coming home to live. 

He loved them every one, their simple ways, 

Their homely virtues and their open hearts; 

But he also knew that never again could he 

Reclaim the olden place within their hearts; 

His disappointed, lonesome folks at home, 

A mother's broken heart, a father's wrath. 

And then he read again his testament, 

A man's worst foes are his own family; 

And that a man must say good-bye to these, 

Whatever the cost, if duty says to him, go. 



27 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And then his dreams rebounded to Lillian 

And her charms; would he be strong enough to say 

Good-bye to home, to native land, to friends? 

At last the lion within him gained control; 

And with awakened will and sinewy tread, 

He marched with head erect back to his room. 

"No more of this," he said, "I am a man; 

Duty is first!" And soon his buried head 

Was in his book. 



2» 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Ill 

How slowly commencement week dragged to its close. 
Mixed jealousy and fear ofttimes makes years 
Of hours, and days of longing minutes; and pride 
Holds one in check repeatedly from the right, 
From doing what instinctively he craves 
And will not rest unless he does; halts him 
Until the golden gliding hours are wasted. 

Lillian plaj^ed her game with a high hand, and Jean 
Played his; deceit is sure to breed deceit. 
How useless 'tis in friendship to attempt 
The mastery; time gives the stronger soul 
Its rightful place ; naught hidden can endure. 

Proud Lillian had her escort, and dressed 

Always her daintiest; and tried to fling 

Herself where Jean would meet her incessantly. 

But he made every attempt to shun her encounters; 

He walked in unused paths, loitered in his room; 

However, his eyes were always on the alert 

To catch a glimpse of her. And so the week 

Wore old, and the college circle buzzed with gossip; 

Though Jean's magnanimous smile was brighter now 

Than usual, and he was full of mirth. 

His voice was richer, too, than usual. 

He passed among his many wondering friends 

In such light-hearted, frivolous, courtly manner, 

That they thought it was strange, and yet were silenced. 

29 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Commencement day at length lagged drearily. 
His place upon the program was announced; 
The crowd hung breathless on his winged words; 
He stood erect, and with his soul afire, 
Unloosed the energy of his pained being. 
All were surprised, for while Jean always stood 
Among the few in everything he tried. 
He now had set a standard none could equal. 
Congratulations came from every side; 
The faculty, that had been watching him, 
Now offered him a tempting fellowship 
For graduate study abroad, and teeming honor. 

And when he asked a time to contemplate, 
And told them what he had in mind to do. 
They had a thousand cold scholastic proofs 
That he was inanely foolish, nor could he 
Give a selfish motive for his chosen course. 
Strange, he thought, that life must ever ask 
The logic for its beetling flights of soul. 
When not the slightest reason ever can 
Be given for these, however much we search. 

And when among the others in the crowd, 
Haughty Lillian waited now to touch his hand, 
And tell him how she had enjoyed his part; 
Though mostly to solicit an invitation 
From him, he kept his unseen glance her way, 
And noting that she waited till the last, 

30 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Quickly excused himself and hurried away, 
Leaving her quite crestfallen and perplexed. 

That afternoon a daintily tinted note, 
Sealed with her kisses, blotted with her tears, 
Came to him, simply saying, "Come at seven; 
I so much want to see you. — Lillian." 

Where is your boasted strength of manhood now? 

You who can hold a thousand spellbound minds 

Upon your words; who can a listless ear 

Turn toward the offer of loudly bellowing fame. 

Yet cannot calmly speak with your own soul? 

Your brain is all awhirl with but one line 

From her you love, although you have reasoned hours 

Upon the problem, and with faultless forethought 

Have concluded that you would never see her more. 

Your trunk is packed; the train is due at six. 

Why not be strong? — The real strength in men 

Is sometimes shown through kneeling unto weakness. 

How else are they held to their heritage of clay? 

Lillian : (alone) 
'Tis seven o'clock, but still he does not come. 

The dainty form has never looked so perfect. 
The little woman never so superb. 
The heaving of the lace upon her breast 
Bespeaks her eagerness and fear. 

31 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Lillian : 

Will he 
Not come? — How wretched barren is life without 
The one we love ! I have his little verses 
Within my bosom: no, 'It matters not,' 
It matters not where life may find itself, 
In wealth or luxury, society 
Or power; if he who should have been with you 
Is not, then life has spilled for you its sweet 
Aroma, and its dregs will ever float 
Upon your cup of joy. It matters not 
If perversity and hardship and disdain 
Are all your lot ; if he is at your side 
Who should be there, then life is savory. 
And you can sip its golden wine forever. 

Strange how our lives develop under trouble; 
Wondrous how a week can change a simpering girl 
Into the magic mold of womanhood. 
But one who reads the inner springs of the mind 
Sees many a life that lacks in strength and power, 
Simply because no test of pain has ever 
Revealed the soul's stronghold unto itself. 

Hear the nervous rap upon the door, 

And see the maiden with sure feminine skill 

Set things at ease. Jean, time would have at least 

A parting word with you: Give all for love. 

Years stop the current of the mind and heal 

Its aching voids; but never so the heart. 

32 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 

I am here tonight but leave tomorrow morn. 

Lillian : 

Oh Jean, you roguish boy, how dare you go 
So soon? 

Jean: 

What have I here to further wait? 

Lillian : 

Friendship ofttimes holds a man a little hour 

And sometimes longer. — I fear your many friends 

Have shown you to your stronger self too soon. 

Jean: 

Nay Lillian, I have known my quality 

Before; this flattery lasts but a day. 

And those who lay it thickest, mean the least. 

I hope you estimate me as I am; 

My head will never lose its poise through praise. 

Lillian : 

Let us talk sense; this flitting night will slip 
Before we know it; and we shall be sorry, 
If we thus bickering waste it. 

Jean: 

Why I came 
I know not; life's mysteries are ever new; 
We think we catch small glimpses as in dreams, 

33 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Though what they mean is ever in a maze. 
I had hoped I should not see you any more; 
Yet here I am ; I cannot tell you why. 
But I have brought my little verse again; 
The last I hope that I shall ever bring, 
For pain is woven through its warp and weft. 

A night blooming cereus was brought from afar, 

In a costly vase. 
That those who knew not its beauty, might see 

Its waxen face, 
For who can picture this delicate flower. 
That blooms in the night but for an hour; 
As though the world held not a charm, 
But only filled it with alarm; 
As though its soul were far too sweet 
To endure one breath of life's harsh heat. 

And close beside the costly vase, 

A sunflower stood, 
And shed his broad coarse smile on all, 

As a sunflower should. 
And the cereus opened her soul in the face 
Of the sunflower that bowed with a homely grace; 
And never till then had the sunflower seen 
The depth of his poverty was so mean; 
And when the cereus went to sleep, 
The sunflower stood in the midnight deep. 



3<: 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



You are the cereus, Lillian, you, 

Matchless, serene; 
I am the sunflower, Lillian, I, 

Convmon and mean; 
Nature has opened your soul in my face, 
That your delicate fancies of love I might trace; 
Though never might hope to possess such a flower, 
Since none save a prince could please you an hour; 
But my heart is hushed, it has felt too deep. 
And no other flower shall awake it from sleep. 

Lillian : 
But Jean, in this you are unjust to yourself; 
You are no sunflower among your fellowmen; 
And you likewise have done me as great wrong; 
You think me but a worthless simpering girl, 
Unfitted for the toil and heat of day. 

Jean: 

Yes Lillian, you of airy grace and beauty. 

Such as scarce once in life a man may meet; 

You were meant for a palace of luxury and ease, 

You were meant to live in finery, bedecked 

With diamonds, with no other use save just 

To captivate. The cereus has no mission 

Save beauty; earth may lay no other claims 

Upon its life; but of coarse usefulness 

The fibers of the sunflower speak; earth binds 

Its burdens on the backs of those who can 

Endure the heat of the conflict. 

35 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Lillian : 

Still you do 
Me wrong. I may be frivolous and weak; 
I may not be an Atlas, wearied, sweltering; 
I may not feel that God has laid the weight 
Of raising heathendom upon my shoulders; 
Earth may not claim much of my trivial thought; 
But Jean, I can be yet a useful woman. 
Whose ministry will sweeten those she loves. 

Jean: 

No Lillian, you were meant for a prince's palace; 
Life's deeper needs cannot appeal to you; 
You were not fashioned to reform the world. 

Lillian : 

I may not be fashioned to be a fabled knight 
For a far off losing battle; but still you do 
Me wrong. I was not meant to be the toy 
Of any man: in all my weakness I 
Can help him whom I love, although he choose 
To dwell in heathendom. 

Jean : 

Nay Lillian, nay; 
Love cannot change the personality. 
The cereus, howsoever much she loved 
The sunflower, could not therefore become a weed. 

36 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Lillian: 

But Jean, you see not this within, nor feel 
What I have felt these feverish days; I feel 
That I can be whatever the one I love 
Shall choose to have me be, if that be noble 
And of worth to him. 

Jean: 

But feeling, Lillian, 
Is so different upon the mountain top 
From what it is within the valley and 
The shadow, that perhaps you will find at length 
Your feeling is no proper guide to follow. 

Lillian : 

What can one follow then? The mountain top. 
With all one's better angels, breathing to life 
One's higher instincts, surely can no one 
Deceive. One may not quite attain those heights; 
But life were not worth while, without the striving. 

Jean: 

Your unstudied innocence and dreamy eyes 

Intoxicate me ; who could answer such 

An artless image of your nobler self? 

Who would dare say it could not be fulfilled? — 

But I must go. — The years alone may tell. 

We have been thrown together in an hour, 

37 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And are as soon again to drift apart; 
Time, the great leveler, has for each of us, 
We know not what; but we may hope at least 
It has some useful place for us to fill. 

She answered his caress, by planting her 
Two lips upon his cheek as one might lay. 
With tenderest grace, a rosebud on cold marble; 
And he went out into the night alone. 



38 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



IV 

Mac: 
Come in, Jean. — Are you ill? Why thus so pale? 

Jean : 

Mac, one can never know, until he says 
Good-bye, quite what it means to part with all 
The friends his better self has made. 

Mac: 

Friend, you mean. 

Jean : 
No, I mean friends; royal the fellowship 
We have shared these years while I have just begun 
To know myself; were all my life forgotten 
Save this, I still would be a very king. 

Mac: 
Do you remember, Jean, when first we met? 
I dreamed for hours of two large warm brown eyes, 
Enveloped in a face that had not felt 
Its native strength. 

Jean: 

Mac, you may never know 

What you have done for me; I have harbored scarce 

A thought you have not shared, since we became 

Close friends. 

39 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



JAkc. 
God gives us somehow, if we ask, 
A few sweet souls to guide and spend ourselves 
Upon from day to day; this truly is 
The largest opportunity of life. 
A man may rear a family, and every 
Child may disappoint the ones who gave 
It birth; but when a man has made a friend, 
Has lived with him, has guided and advised 
His course, has shared his deepest life; when one 
Has woven his own ideals into his life; 
One then may be content, for he has set 
Adrift a partial copy of himself, 
Has multiplied his life; by the laws of truth 
Need never fear the coming destiny of time. 
Nothing in life so certain is of stipend 
As the investment in one's bosom friends. 

Jean: 
God must have meant that you these years should be 
My chief confessor; every one must have 
Someone with whom to share his deeper self; 
One never is quite sure of anything. 
Until he has discussed it with a friend. 

Mac: 

Jean, you know what I think you ought to do? 

I know your plans are for the foreign field; 

And you will never be content unless 

40 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Sometime you go. You have an unrestricted 
Personality, which seems to see 
And sympathize with all the problems in 
The lives of all the men you meet; you love 
The truth where'er or in whatever form 
You find it. Nearly every man is like 
The average violin; one string is rich 
In depth of tone, the others lack quality. 

Friendship tests the soul as chords the strings; 

Each friendship and each chord strikes some new depth. 

Shows something at bottom unique; a man is measured 

By his hundred friends, exactly as 

An instrument is tested by the tones 

A hundred different chords bring out of it. 

The commonplace instrument is weak and hollow 

At many points; likewise, the average man. 

One has his narrow, cherished hobby; 

Unless he argues every one he meets 

Into believing his perverted truths, 

He bickering quarrels and snarls; another 

Has yellow streaks, and rings untrue to truth; 

Another, vanity, and cranes tiptoe, 

Ever aspiring to those above his grasp; 

Another, steeped in sin; another, out 

Of sympathy with life. 

But when one has 

That magic combination of character. 

Which stands four-square to every life he meets; 

41 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



When one can grasp the hand of every man 

And feel for him a brotherly sympathy, 

Not a professional, forced charity, 

Nor a cant condescending prudish pity; 

But in his heart a fellow comradship 

Which treats each man his equal, high or low. 

Nor asks of any to subscribe to creed 

Nor antique thought, except in broadest terms; 

But in whose soul the goodness of the world 

Floats without scraping rock or reef of sand, — 

When one has such a personality, 

Which claims the high respect of rugged men. 

Then there is in all the world one fitting work 

He ought to thrust himself into a time 

At least; the colleges are woefully 

In need of men to lead their Christian work; 

Such as have soul and sense enough to win 

The strongest men. You could do this; you have 

In this past year helped win more than a score 

Whom every one thought 'twas impossible 

Ever to reach. 

Jean: 

If I could share my life 
As you have shared with me these past four years, 
Willingly I would do anything. 
You have shown me such possibilities 
Of unalloyed unselfishness and true 
Devotion to the lives of all your friends, 

42 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



That it has melted all the harshness, all 

The ungenerousness and greed from my weak life. 

But I had rather go across the seas; 

So few have chosen to go; so many here 

May help to bear the load; I want to place 

My single life upon the open seas, 

Where it will be most servicable to all. 

Mac: 

This thought appeals to me: Had I gone out 
Four years ago, I had gone alone; now two 
Are in the field, and four have planned to go, 
That I have won. Now when I embark, instead 
Of working on lone handed, six at least 
Will be upon the foreign shore, because 
I tarried these four years. You could do likewise ; 
Say but the word and you shall have the chance. 

Jean: 

I cannot question your sincerity. 

My life is such a wonder to me that 

I am intoxicated when I look 

Into its possibilities: if it 

Develops the next ten years at this same pace, 

What may it not reveal in truth and goodness? 

But I am weak; how dare I undertake 

What you suggest? Four years ago, you rocked 

My trundle-bed, and taught me first to pray. 

43 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Mac: 

I hope you ever will keep quite as humble; 

Perspective is the test of every life. 

One who can see beyond where he has climbed 

A score of years or more, will keep his head, 

And not grow dizzy at his seeming height; 

But one who fancies that the pinnacle 

Is beneath his feet, will topple ere he knows. 

The weak are ever strong; and those who feel 

Their strength, pathetically weak and blind. 

Jean: 

Friendship so expands the soul, that life 
Without it would be but a starless night. 
A friend is like an oasis within 
The desert, one may drink and be refreshed 
No difference what the labored load he bears 
Across the burning sands. Our friendship has 
Grown to such sacred depths, that I have tried 
To frame in verse what it has meant to me, 
Only I know the words are empty sound: 

Alone, the ocean of life is uncharted to thought; 
Through a chilling fog, the distant harbor is sought; 
And life seems scarcely worth the scanty while 
It drifts one on, mile after drearier mile, 
To death's uncheery port, with trial on trial. 



44 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



But when my friend and I put out to sea, 
I am quite sheltered in his peaceful lee, 
And he in mine: whatever the storm may be, 
We know a Master Mind has set the sail; 
We know a Heart of Love metes out the gale. 

Mac: 
Jean, this is more than I deserve from you. 

Jean : 

We nestle close together beneath the trees, 

As two spent birds, with weary pinions furled; 

And ponder o'er the problems of our lives. 
As twilight isolates us from the world. 

You tell me o'er your beads in sacredness. 

And one by one your deepest secrets share. 

Your frequent failures, your hard-earned success, 
Your highest hopes, your constant daily care. 

» 

I hear them all from your uncovered heart, 
And then begin and tell my beads to you; 

The bond of concord that enfolds our lives 
Is to our souls a sweet, refreshing dew; 

The marvel is, we know and sympathize. 
As though each were in turn, the All Good, the All 
Wise. 

45 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Mac: 

True friendship is the sesame of life; 
No hidden chamber of soul but opens to it. 

Jean: 

Mac, I must go. — There is no word in friendship 

To express good-bye, one lives almost 

As much with his close friends when far apart 

As when together. It is very strange ; 

I only wonder! Who can formulate. 

Who bound his creed? There are vast heights and 

depths 
That man has never set his foot upon, 
From which he has never dropped his line and plummet, 
To feel the gravity of God's pervading love; 
Heights compared with which, the sweetest breaths 
Humanity has drawn out of the abyss 
Of heaven, are only faint and flickering gleams 
Of God's deep universal love and pain. 
We all are children ; how can God whisper half 
The secrets he may wish to have us share? 

I only wonder! Who may set a bound 

Upon the all pervading goodness? 

I know that creeds must be, have ever been; 

The vine that bears its fruit most plenteously 

Needs a support, a trellis; likewise a church 

Holds up the bleeding body of the Christ. 

But if the Lord of our lives were here today, 

46 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Were he to see the warring creeds of men, 

I fancy that a blush of shame for us 

Would fall across his winsome countenance; 

I fancy he would stand as once he stood, 

Erect with hard-set jaw and blazing eye. 

Would call all men to him; would one by one, 

Tell them to be at peace, tell them to lay 

Aside their egotistic reasoning. 

Their faultless logic, womout toys of time; 

Tell them to give their hearts up to the love 

That burned his life out in three vigorous years; 

Tell them to join their hands and all be one. 

Perchance they then might view the world with his 

Keen eye, and feel with his knowing heart its needs. 

And work its cure with his untiring will, 

Living what they profess now to believe. 

Forgetting quite the idle mockery 

Of a weak race of hero worshipers. 

I would not take from any man his creed; 
It meets the needs of his weak shivering soul; 
It steels his nerves to meet life's certain crises; 
It solves for him the riddle of existence; 
He could not do without it; but for me, 
I only know that God is good and wise; 
I only know He leads me ever on 
To share his ever growing fellowship. 
I only know that no one else can think 
Or feel or work for me ; I am as free 

47 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



As the first Adam that lived; the sky is still 
Serene, inviting man, the up-looker. 
To gaze and feel, to throw aside all veils 
That come between his soul and the Unknown. 
I only know that every man that thus 
Will look, must see the universal dome 
Set with the pole star, God, and all things else 
Revolving around it; must see the Christ, 
His own projection at his loftiest height. 
Containing only what is noble and true. 
The one solution of his inmost soul, 
The highest hope his mind can formulate, 
The comprehensive cry of his whole being 
Made tangible for his entire life. 

Who can form a creed without omitting some? 
But God in his broad purpose has a place 
For all; the mother who has reared a son. 
However base he be, has yet a place 

Within her heart of hearts for him; 

She oft remembers his sweet innocence 

And childish prattle, though long seared in sin; 

She ever seeks to woo it back to life. 

And so the God who sees us as we are, 

Finds very little in the best of us 

That He finds not within the very worst. 

Give the worst man a normal set of nerves 

And a clean page to start anew his record. 

And he would set a faultless copy. 

48 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Who deserves a crown? Who has his virtue 

Unalloyed? The only difference in us all 

Is this: Some have looked up, have seen the sun; 

And ever afterward all things to them 

And measured by the refulgent light of day; 

Their eyes are hypnotized by open truth; 

And others have looked down into the depths, 

Have felt the siren power of greed and sex, 

And so infatuated have they grown, 

That all of life to them is cast in shadows. 

I only wonder! God has somehow given 

To us who feed upon the open sunlight 

Of his limitless love and goodness, power in friendship 

To lift the weakest man in all the world 

Up to our levels. It is very strange! 

Who can explain the changes we have seen 

Around us every day? We have lifted men 

These past four years, whom many Christians had 

Thrown stones at and had spat upon with lies. 

'Tis strange that any man can believe himself 

Human and hate his brother; but this is life. 

Our friendship has meant much to both of us; 

I wish that we might dwell together always. 



49 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



My lips are parched whenever we are apart, 

Remembering the draughts of blood-red wine 
Which have flowed from your sweet soul to 
strengthen mine; 
I have wended lonely over the burning sands 
With many a galling burden on my breast, 
In hope to find another oasis 

Where I might quench my thirst and be at 
rest. 

I shall return to your clear flowing stream 
Some sunny morn ; under your dome serene 

Shall drink of every pore; and it will seem 
That friendship is the sesame of life; 

Until then, I shall live far out upon the 

heights, 
And thrust my soul to clear ethereal flights; 
Lest I may prove unworthy your old wine, 

(Jean exits) 

Mac: 

I shall see you in the morning, Jean 

(Alone musing) The room seems strangely warm and 

cheery tonight; 

It seems a pervading perfume is in the air. 

If I had lived to know but one such evening 

As this, then the struggle were worth all it has cost; 

For here at last has gone from me a man. 

With all the possibilities of life. 

I have been but the tug boat that has turned 

50 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



His ocean liner out toward the deep, 
Where it has found at length its element; 
And now steams off and leaves me far behind, 
Fearful to try the storm tossed waves that it 
Dashes its prow into and breaks in foam. 

What are degrees and honors? What estates? 

Capacity for friendship is the measure 

Of a man. Our many colleges may train 

Men for diplomas till doomsday; they may teach 

Them every fact within the universe; 

But unless the will is set in training, too. 

Unless they correlate the truths they learn 

With their own lives, then they at very best 

Are only clever triflers and not men. 

The truth has ever been an open book, 

Has ever been as free as mountain air, 

To those who have engraved it on their hearts, 

To those who have imbibed it for themselves. 

To those who have known its secret use and power. 

But those who boast with artificial lives 

And shallow empty souls, may never find it. 

When one has felt the pulsebeat of the world, 
When one has learned to love the good and true 
And beautiful wherever found, when one 
Lives constantly in friendship with the best 
That he has known, when one is capable 
To measure his own soul beside earth's masters, 

51 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And to enjoy the fellowship of naked truth; 
Then no one need to seek his pedigree, 
Enough it is to know he is a man. 

He has all things: The sun, the moon, the stars. 

The day, the night, the seasons and the years; 

Their beauty and their wonder ever are his; 

He has his senses open, and has enough 

To satisfy their needful wants; he has 

A few unselfish friends to minister 

His deepest soul unto, and they in turn 

Breathe out the sweetest fragrance of their lives 

That he may be refreshed; he has his soul 

With all its varied longings and unrests, 

Its hopes and fears, he has the choicest spirits 

Of all the earth revealed in treasured tomes 

For his secret springs; he has the Nazerene, 

Who out of his unsullied striving soul 

Has let him see the God of matchless love. 

His father and the father of all things. 

He has as much as any man has had. 

Except in quantity, perhaps, for he 

Is dealing with realities; life to him 

Is not a game of chance in any sense. 

He travels on as one who bears a cup 
Filled to the brim with the choicest wine of time. 
Only one cup is given his hands to carry. 
Hence his care; if he stumble, some is spilled, 

52 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



If he fall, the whole is lost; the cup is shattered. 
The God who filled the cup for him, prepared 
The thirsty souls to drink and be refreshed; 
And he must carry it whatever the cost. 
He learns the only lessons life may teach 
Its favored few, who dwell upon the heights: 
Unselfish friendship with his fellowmen, 
And friendship with his God, in all his ways. 



53 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



They all were there: the old, the young, the rich, 
The poor, the high, the low; no one was missing. 
The country atmosphere is free from caste; 
All dwell beneath the boundless dome of the sky 
In sympathy with every living thing. 
Or brute or plant or man. They all had come 
To help the parents welcome Jean's return. 

Jean went among them as in olden time 

The gods were wont to walk the earth among men ; 

The ruddy glow of youth was on his cheek, 

And there flowed out of him a subtle power 

Of personality, as fragrant and free 

As perfume from the lilac in the early 

Spring. Unconsciously he stood erect, 

With features sharp as though they had been hewn 

From flawless marble; view him as you would, 

He was a man, in head and heart and hand, 

Blended and unified; his soul had chiseled 

Its certain marks all over him; so thin 

The mantle of his body seemed, that one 

Could almost turn the leaves as of a book, 

And read the inmost diary of each 

Day's thought and life. To see him did one good; 

And but to know him was a constant tonic. 

He went among them freely, greeting them. 

Enquiring how they were; his sympathy 

54 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Went out to all, and his unbounded kindness 
Cast a fragrance whithersoe'er it fell. 
He keenly read the change in all he met; 
Sometimes he bubbled over with mirth and joy; 
Sometimes he sighed with pain and disappointment; 
Always he showed unbounded sympathy. 

He met his old companions of the past, 
The boys who had known him as a boisterous boy. 
He anxiously had watched to catch a glimpse 
Of his old comrade of the early days. 
The companion with whom he had shared everything, 
Both good and bad. A half a dozen years 
Had intervened; he had served in the Navy 
For four years, and Jean was wondering 
What time had wrought; and suddenly he saw; 
They stood, face piercing face, and Jean was sick: 
He read the marks of sin at a swift glance. 
He took his old companion by the hand, 
And called him the old name in the old way; 
The other looked out of the blood-shot corner 
Of his muddy eye, and said with half a sneer, 
"Yes, I've been seeing things;" and Jean well knew 
What things he meant, nor cared to ask their names. 
He tried as best he could to recall a scene 
Of olden times, of childhood merriment, 
When they were boys with common interests 
And common joys; but the old comrade was 
Not there; he had been lost far out at sea, 

55 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And this was only his bruised skeleton 
That had come back, a bundle of polluted 
Clay. Jean tried in every way to waken 
Some common feeling, but in vain: if one 
Looks long into the blazing sun, his eyes 
Can nevermore adjust themselves to day; 
And if one plays with fire, his soul is parched. 
At length the evening wore away, and Jean 
Was in his chamber. 

Jean: (musing) 

Can it be true? Can half 
A dozen years bring such a change of life? 
My curiosity at last is still ; 
I see that everything has its own price; 
I find my old companions, most of them. 
Stricken for life, the fearful cost of sin. 
My contemplation has often said, some things 
Are not recorded; but I read tonight 
The not uncertain record of the past; 
Nothing escapes the piercing eye of time. 

Time is a curious builder, and very few 

Can read its strokes aright; it is unjust 

To many, and to some is quite too good. 

I have had every opportunity in life 

And the old comrade of my boyhood days, 

Has seen enough of hell to smudge an angel. 

Perhaps I now am faultier than he, if all 

56 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Were known; had he been in my place, and I 
In his, who knows, he might be better now 
Than I, and I far worse than he. I know 
I could bring back to life his better self 
If I could live with him as once we lived; 
But he is gone, and I may never see 
Him more, — gone on another random journey 
Seeing things. 

Deep down within my soul I hear 
A voice that says: Perchance in some fair clime, 
In some far distant future now unknown, 
He will receive a better chance than I; 
If justice is at last to balance things. 
This but an echo; still I feel somehow 
That my coarse sympathy cannot exceed 
The greater depths of God's unfathomed love. 
All that the present holds is this: All things 
In nature are profuse in fruit-bearing; 
One acorn in a million seems destined 
To become an oak; one child a century 
Reveals the estate of man. My littleness 
I see tonight as I have never seen. 
Time mocks us all; it has gone on before 
One came; and it will glide as noiselessly, 
And men will go about their business just 
The same, when one is gone; pride is the placard 
Of a stunted soul; tonight, I have seen 
More affectation than should fill the world, 

57 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Man's elemental impulse seems to be 

The ego. Few outgrow it; everywhere 

Men hide behind some selfish petty pride, 

When, if they knew, there is scarce a man alive 

In all the world that cannot do something 

Of worth, that their weak hands could not attempt. 

But all has not been worthless dross tonight. 

There is in common people so much worth, 

Such unalloyed content and happiness. 

Such heavy burdens borne unconsciously, 

Such satisfaction with their meager lot, 

Such inspiration in their daily life, 

Such trustfulness in all their fellowmen. 

That any king might covet them with pride. 

It is a tonic to the soul to be 

At home again; there is a sympathy 

That nowhere else is known or even guessed. 

One's life is as an open book to all; 

For everyone and everything is woven 

Into its history, in every line. 

The old things after all appeal to one. 

He lay him down, and as he fell asleep,^ 

These thoughts kept slowly running through his mind; 



58 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



There is no place like the old place, 
The place where one is born, 
Where early in the morning 
He meets life's ruddy dawn. 
Where first his brown eyes open 
In wonder and in glee 
As he comes slowly drifting 
Out of eternity, — 

There is no place like the old place. 

There are no friends like the old friends. 
The friends of the bygone days, 
The friends from early childhood 
In all life's varied ways, 
The friends who wear the glamour 
Of youthful beckonings, 
Yet satisfy the testings 
Maturer manhood brings, — 

There are no friends like the old friends. 



59 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



VI 

And so they loitered out across the fields, 
The father and the son; they wended over 
The meadowland; they waded through the rye; 
The cornfield flung its banners in their faces. 
The father's thoughts were ever on his farm; 
How here a fence might be removed, and two 
Fields thrown together; how the crops might be 
Rotated to advantage; how a thousand 
Varied changes might be wrought. They crossed 
Into the timberland, and talked of when 
It would be best to sell ; they stopped among 
The cattle, sheep, and hogs, selecting some. 
And culling others to keep another year. 

Then the father proudly led the son 
Among the horses, told him to select 
Whichever one he wanted for his own. 
Jean's eye fell soon upon the best of the herd. 
The father, jesting, told him he had chosen 
The one most worthless in all the lot; he was 
Surprised a boy so soon from college should 
Be found so very dull in matters so 
Important. Then Jean went into the points 
Of conformation that were evident: 
The symmetry of lines, the bone, the muscle. 
The temper, and the eye; whereupon the father 
Roared with laughter, told the son that this 

60 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Was the very colt that he had bought for him. 
And thus they walked and talked from field to field. 

The old man's eye was on the crops and stock; 

But Jean was dreamy; memory had unloosed 

The golden cord that bound him to the past. 

The olden Jean with his ambitions came 

And went, as chill and heat displace each other 

In a fevered brain. And last of all 

They came down to the brook, and clambered up 

The hill that overlooked the rolling farm. 

Here it was that Jean's new house and barn 

Were to be builded. The old man explained 

The various details as he had thought them out: 

Here was the site for the bank barn, and here 

The house, and there the garden, there the well, 

And yonder the orchard. Thus they sat down and faced 

The setting sun, and looked across the fields, — 

A feast for any eye. Somehow this strain 

Whispering and coaxing came to him o'er and o'er: 

I've an empty bower on yonder hill. 
With windows wide and door ajar, 
Awaiting a songster from afar; 

It is furnished fit for any queen; 

About it the flowers play hide and seek 

As they trip the loitering laughing breeze, 

Which scampers among the fruit-laden trees ; 

At the foot of the hill, a brook with its song 

Goes threading the grain-laden fields along. 
61 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 

Father, I have wondered many times 
What your aged father said when you went out 
To fight for the old flag we love so much; 
I wonder what your mother did the night 
Before you left, and at the morning meal? 

And then the old man's nerves grew tense, his eyes 
Assumed their youthful luster, and a thrill 
Shot through his being as the warrior said: 

Father: 
Jean, those were stirring times! The land was all 
Aflame! The flag had been insulted, and 
The bugle, the drum and fife, made the blood boil. 
But it was sad, for every fireside mourned 
Its vacant chair; and many, more than one. 
And as the news came northward, telling of the rage 
Of the bitterest warfare, its killed and missing, many 
A mother's son, 'twas learned, had bit the dust. 



Jean: 



But Father, what did your old father say, 
And your old mother? 

The warrior's eyes 
Grew dim, as through the mists of fifty years, 
He raised the curtain on a sacred scene, 
His lips would not disclose; but this is what 
The dream of fifty years brought back to him: 



62 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



He had enlisted, had come home at night 

Unheard, had stolen to his attic chamber. 

Had selected a few of his most cherished treasures, 

Had tiptoed to his mother's side; had pressed 

A silent kiss on her half-parted lips. 

A moonbeam lay across her pale white face; 

For she was dreaming in the silent night 

That the death angel crossed her threshold, took 

Her only son and left her sad and lone. 

He placed a meagre note beside his plate. 

Upon the table, bearing but these words, 

'A Volunteer'; then ate some bread and meat, 

And started through the dreary chilly night 

Ten miles whither the train set South at dawn. 

And just before the engine hove in sight, 

A foam-flecked steed came dashing down the street, 

And an old man, with locks of gray, and stooped 

Form, rode up to shake him by the hand. 

To wish him well and place within his grasp 

His mother's testament. This Jean well knew. 

Although he had heard it only once; it was 

A tale his father scarcely ever told, 

And then in tears. 

Jean : 

I am cruel. Father, now 
To recall to memory this scene you sketched 
For Mother once when I was but a lad; 
But did your parents think you \Qr^ foolish? 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Father : 

No, 
Whatever was the pain they felt, their hearts 
Were proud, they had a son who dared his life 
To save their country's flag, for they had come 
Across the billowy deep to found a home 
Within the land of freedom. 

Jean: 

Were you sad 
That you must go? 

Father: 

I was not forced to go ! 
I was a Volunteer! 'We're coming. Father Abraham, 
Six hundred thousand strong,' we proudly sang 
As we marched forth; we gladly went; who would 
Hold back in such a time as that? None but 
A coward! Old as I am, I would go today. 
If there were such a need as there was then! 

Jean: 
Would you be glad, were I to volunteer. 
If I saw such a need? 

Father: 

There is no need 
Today such as there was in Sixty-One, 
My boy. 

64 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 
Yes, Father, greater need than then. 
If such a thing could be ; men everywhere 
Are needed in the growing cause of truth 
And righteousness, for when one thinks how long 
The world has lain in ignorance and sin; 
Thinks of the countless million souls now dead 
That never had the chance to rightly live; 
Thinks that a life goes out with each pulse beat 
That has not seen the light of freedom. 
Nor has known what 'tis to really truly live; 
When one thinks of the great abuse of those 
In power upon the weaker ones they rule, 
Of all the tyranny and wretchedness 
And ignorance; is it not quite sufficient 
Cause to make the blood boil? When one thinks 
That these poor wretched creatures, born and reared 
In deepest heathendom, have no way of 
Escape, no money to transport themselves 
Into a land of freedom, is not one 
Obliged to take enlightenment to them? 

Father: 

But Jean, one does not need to go so far; 

Help is needed at our very doorstep; 

Our own community is woefully 

In want of many things; this you well know. 

You who have gone and feasted on the fruits 

Of learning, ought now to come back to us 

65 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And share the many truths that you have gathered. 
The noblest crop of all these wealthy farms 

Is their young men and women ; we have long 

Talked of the happy times when you would return 

And settle on the hill to live for us. 

Our wealth is quite sufficient; we could run 

A model farm, and you could, if you wish, 

Become a lecturer to farmers, you 

Could teach them how to raise far better crops, 

You could inspire their children, and thus do 

Great good. I have long seen this needy field. 

Had I been sent to college, I could now 

Do what we are expecting you to accomplish. 

I have planned that my own limitations should 

Not fall on you; I have waited all these years 

Your life career; my sole ambition has 

Been set on this. 

Jean: 

But Father, if you knew 
A need some fifty times as great as this 
That you could fill, would you not try to do it? 

Father: 

I do not know of such a need; in fact, 
I do not think such a need exists. 



66 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 

If you 
Saw here two houses in the neighborhood 
Afire; and there were fifty men at work 
Upon the one, and only one lone man 
Upon the other, would you long debate 
Where you were needed the more? Look if you will; 
Sin is everywhere; here we have fifty 
Men at work extinguishing the flames 
It kindles; only one at work within 
The lands of heathendom; and here so many 
More are willing to lay down their lives 
Than there. Can one then seriously question where 
The need is greater? 

Father: 

You do not mean that you 
Intend to go! Why boy, you could upon 
These acres raise enough to send each year 
A score of men. 

Jean: 

What if the score of men 

Could not be found? Besides, each man has his 

Own obligations to perform ; one can 

Not shift responsibility; I am 

A Volunteer, enlisted under the banner 

Of the spotless Prince of Peace ; and hope some day, 

. If God permit, to go where the need is greatest. 

67 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



When one has harbored long a noble thought, 
Has felt the perfumed breezes wafted fresh 
From the Creator's rosary, can he hope 
To seal the eastern doorway of his soul 
Which admits the ruddy breath of Aurora? 

Father: 

I did not send you away to college to learn 
Such nonsense. Jean, you are a likely lad 
And I am disappointed woefully 
In you. 

Jean: 

Indeed, I am sorry, Father, 
For you taught me first to pray. Our Father; 
And that means not our own family alone, 
Nor our own state, nor nation; but our world. 
If God is father of us all, then we 
Are brothers all ; and he expects that we 
Who have been fortunate, must lend a hand 
To those who are unfortunate; how else 
May the world be won to righteousness? — ^You had 
Not been more disappointed in me had 
I disobeyed your teaching, and come back 
To you a wasted profligate, I fear. 

Father: 

You must be crazy; and few maladies 

Are worse than that; for one might be reclaimed 

68 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Were he in his right mind, though prodigal; 
But when the mind has lost its rightful function, 
When reason totters, then what is there left? 

And thus the old man silently withdrew; 
And Jean lay rapt in fancy, setting visions 
Afloat, as when a wild canary alights 
Upon a thistle stem, and one by one 
Loosens the airy dreamy downs upon 
The breeze, robbing each of its rightful burden. 
And thus the twilight fell: his eyes were very 
Misty, seeing but the soul of things. 

He heard a child's clear voice beside the brook. 
And looking up saw three lithe forms approach, 
A woman with a little boy and girl. 
Could he be dreaming? Were these not his Lillian, 
And little Lillian and little Jean? 
The forms came nearer, passing on the road. 
The roguish childish laughter flamed his breast. 
And when he heard the smoothest silvery voice 
Call out, 'Here Jean and Miriam!' he arose 
And took two hasty steps before he awoke. 
The woman saw him through the gathering darkness, 
And quickly vanished down the winding road. 
These were his distant cousin Miriam, 
Her little niece and nephew; one was named 
For her and one for him; and thus he thought 
He heard the names he had dreamed. Strange what a 
life 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



We lead; here two and two does not always 
Make four; few of us know our alphabet; 
None of us may spell l-i-f-e. 

Jean: (musing) 

Was I but dreaming? 
Our senses work strange fantacies sometimes. 
Man is a queer compound of good and best, 
Of bad and worst, of God and man, of strength 
And weakness, of wealth and poverty, of soul 
And body. Many depths are struck in times 
Of stress and strain that we have never perceived. 
One can know at most the tiniest bit 
Of all the pentup possibilities 
And latent thoughts and feelings of his soul. 
The deeper one delves, the more he sees the vast 
Infinity there is within his being, 
Only a fragment of it realized; 
Though ever awaiting for some mystic key 
To open its sealed vault. What is truth to one 
May seem to others roaring idiocy; 
Each has his hobby which, to those who have 
Not thought so carefully, seems fanciful 
And lacking sense. Thus it has ever been; 
Young men catch glimpses of new visions ; 
Then leave their fathers dreaming olden dreams. 

And so the twilight deepened into night. 

Little the young man possesses who leaves home 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And closest friends against their strongest wishes, 
Who goes out in quest of naked truth and love 
In hope to do his fellowmen great good; 
Little he has save conscience, when the storm 
Of conflict breaks hardest over his feeble frame. 
And thus with night came loneliness. 

Jean : (musing) 

What have 
I left? My dearest friends are gone; they think 
I am beside myself; home, country, friends, 
The dearest words one's language knows, burn now 
My tongue; I am as lonely as a lighthouse 
Builded on a rock, far out at sea. 
And yet I have the stars! They as of old 
Shed peace serene out of their silent depths. 
When the first man looked up, he saw the same 
Rich galaxy swing through their orbs; stable 
They move eternally; nothing disturbs 
Them in their established course. 

Standing erect, 
With hat in hand, looking into the depths 
Of the infinitude of heaven, he breathed 
These words: 

" 'When I consider the heavens, the moon and the 

stars ; 

What is man, that thou art mindful of him?' 

Whatever else may come or go, 

I have the stars!" 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And then the wind began 
To blow; and all the heavens were black with anger; 
The stars were gone, and he was left alone. 
Falling upon his face in utter anguish, 
Bitterly he wailed and long, with none to hear. 
Presently his suffering ceased; and as serene 
As look the heavens, when after storm and rain 
They open in perfect calm, and bear no trace 
Of whither the path of the pitiless storm last passed; 
So he felt the towering serenity that comes 
When first the thought of God's all-loving care 
And close companionship conquers the soul. 

Jean: (musing) 
I have the Nazerene and his near God, 
Who loves me more than I can love myself; 
Who placed me in His world and guides me now; 
For whatsoever the pain and wheresoever 
The battle. He will lead me on ; let the 
Storm rage, I have my God, I am at peace. 



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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



VII 

Surprises come when one foresees them least, 

Sometimes unclouded and sometimes fathomless. 

Jean reached the house, expecting all abed; 

But when he saw the lamplight streaming through 

The door, he hardly knew whether to face 

The raging elements, or the harsh words 

His father would shower on him and the tears 

And overpowering love his mother would 

Pour out of her good heart to change his plans; 

But when he entered, everything was cheer. 

His cousin, third removed, his distant cousin, 

Miriam, wreathed in smiles, set things at ease 

By telling how she had mistook him when 

She passed him on the hill, and of the fright 

She had received; and then all burst into 

A round of laughter. Miriam had prepared 

A plate of comfits; and Jean partook of this 

And started spinning tales of college ghosts 

And goblins, and of numberless pranks and scares, 

Forgetting it was now past midnight. Then 

The father merrily began to rob 

The graves of fifty years ago of the army 

Anecdotes and all the wild adventure 

Of a soldier's life. The mother, too, rehearsed 

In serious silvery voice, reports within 

The neighborhood within her memory. 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And buoyant Miriam, not to be outdone, 
The climax capped with roguish studied glee. 
Reaching the weird uncanny end of the tale 
She told, suddenly clutching Jean by the arm, 
She gave such an unearthly, fiendish shriek 
That he came near collapsing. Then they laughed 
Till tears rolled down the mother's cheeks, and he 
Was quite undone. And thus they parted for 
The night. 

Jean found himself at length alone 
Within his chamber, pondering, sorely perplexed, 
Upon the part his father played; for he, 
Jean knew, was only feigning, though he acted 
His part with the fortitude of a brave soldier. 
He had preserved this one last night of home; 
For never again, if once the mother knew. 
Could she be cheerful for the briefest hour. 
And he felt proud of the part his father played. 
That they might take one short hour's glimpse of bliss 
Before the chilling blasts of disappointment 
Came. And he lay down to sleep with queer 
Conflicting wavering thoughts, as sleep the brave 
Upon the burned and barren battlefield. 
After a hard day's fight, ready to march 
When the bugle sounded; for he knew not what hour 
His mother might come to him in the night. 
He lay, as in mid ocean, tempest tossed. 
Not knowing if he would survive the pain; 
Too sick to care, restless recounting his life. 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



In times of trouble when a helpless man 

Leafs through the pictured dream of memory, 

And one by one studies his changing roles, 

And notes the grotesque figures of himself 

Set up in a series, tapering to the point 

Of vanishing, he but discovers he 

Is frail and changeful, that the misconceptions 

In the one, vary a trifle in the next. 

But slightly in the third, and thus through the many 

And varied alterations of himself; 

While on the surface all seem different. 

Yet underneath, all are the very same. 

As a kaleidoscope shifts into figures 

Of endless deviation, mirroring 

Countless varieties of form one hardly 

Understands, with but a few small fragments; 

So in life, the Maker uses but a handful 

Of the pebbles from his spacious seashore of thought 

In molding man; and yet reflected in 

His vast creation, countless are the forms 

Man sees his mind thrown in continually. 

Jean: 

Can I be sure this is no dream within 

A dream? Can I be certain another year 

Will not confound this seeming pressing duty? 

He dashed it over and over, sleepless and fevered; 

The door came open slowly, and he feigned 

75 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



He slept. A trailing gown of white crept down 
Beside his pillow, and with soft caress, 
She placed the tenderest kiss a mother's lips 
Could press upon the brow of her loved son; 
Then disappearing in the darkness as softly 
As she had come, it seemed an angel's smile 
Had fallen upon him and had hushed his fears. 
Repose came to him as to a small child 
That lies secure upon its mother's breast, 
Knowing that naught within the world can harm, 
Caring for nothing half so much as love. 

Jean guessed quite wrongly of his father's part; 
For this is what transpired while he alone 
Upon the hill sat fighting his soul's battles. 
The father brought the news directly home, 
And laid it in the mother's ear; and then 
Together, they sat down to plan a course 
That would defeat his purpose; when upon 
The scene, bounded their cousin Miriam, 
Unhearlded, buoyant and glad, a woman 
Of such light heart, such wholesome wilful ways, 
And surmounting unconquered spirit and buxom health. 
That everyone was cheered wherever she went. 
They said they feared that Jean had lost his mind, 
For he would never think of leaving home 
Were he the son that they had sent away. 
After they had reached the end, she uttered 
Unconsciously a hearty laugh; and then 

76 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



With all the seriousness she could command 
Simply proclaimed that she would change his plans. 
And there was such assurance in her tones 
They were convinced she could win any one. 

Soon they decided that constant cheerfulness 

Must rout their son, for they had never moved 

His mind in anything through argument. 

Too well they knew the one weak spot to strike 

Was at his heart; wherefore they planned their attack. 

Miriam was in command with glittering sword 

Of laughter, and with breastplate of good cheer. 

Not a harsh sound nor a sad note was to 

Be sounded anywhere; love was her guide, 

And all the instincts of her womankind 

At her command. Through many years she had been 

His constant playmate; her home and his were on 

Adjoining farms; an only child was she; 

And she had just returned from college, too. 

The parents long had wished that she and Jean 

Would wed and build their home upon the hill. 

Thus begins another struggle for Jean, 

In which defeat for the first time must come 

To whosoever loses. 

When morning dawned, 
Jean wakened with a start, dreaming his mother 
Lamented loudly her woe; listening, he heard 
The laughter of two women. True it is, 
There are few chasms a woman will not leap 

77 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



For one she loves. Jean quickly concluded 
His mother had not heard; another day 
Remained to pleasure; he would try to fill 
It full to overflowing, ere it closed. 
Little he guessed that others also planned; 
Though Miriam had each hour crowded with joy. 

The history of these swift fleeting days 

Were tedious indeed if given in full, 

For there were parties planned, excursions, drives. 

Outings of every sort, and special guests. 

Jean lived them through expecting every hour 

Surely would be the last; pondering 

Over the whole of his uncertain life. 

The goodness that was showered upon him would 

Have melted to wax the heart of any man 

However coarse or hard it might have been. 

Miriam, who had always seemed his sister. 

Now assumed a different sphere; resourceful 

She was, and her advances modest and 

Discreet, were next to irresistable. 

Jean tried to tell her that she only held 

The place of sister; but she grew each day 

The sweeter and more tender, till he saw 

No power on earth or heaven could stay her mind. 

And so exceeding artless seemed her manner 

That he was next to powerless; circumstances 

Lent her success; he knew that she would tell 

His mother were he to relate his plans. 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Thus fretful days grew into longing weeks; 

He felt the olden youthful allurements return, 

For he was being trapped within a net, 

As is a fly that tangles its weak wings 

Within the silken web of a subtle spider. 

The old ambitions flung their gaudy banners 

In his face: the hill was silently waiting; 

Miriam, his cousin, grew; and Lillian, 

With sunny hair and laughing eyes, faded. 

And decreased in her ardor; she was becoming 

But a mocking dream ; his mother silently helping 

His cousin Miriam to win his love; 

His father, anxious, upon the waiting hill 

To build his house, the call of selfishness. 

To health and plenty, the call of pleasure. 

The call of home, of friends, of native land; 

And Miriam ardently spurring him on. 

And so 
Day after day, reluctantly he said, 
Tomorrow; and thus that weakest of weak words, 
The time that never comes, held him in check. 
But Miriam ever filled the present, today. 
The time that is, and carried well her part. 
Within his breast the roots of love were taking 
Hold, though he was all reserve; and she 
Went far as tactful woman knew she dared, 
With charming sibyl sighs and sparkling glances, 



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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



1 



With fond caresses that were not too bold; f 

And ever with something new and something striking. 

The wild and wilful tosses of her head 
And her roguish laughter, left upon his eye 
Their mark; and Jean began vaguely to dream 
His wedding was announced with cousin Miriam; 
His other sunny featured dream was fading 
Into night, his distant Lillian 
Was losing all her charms. The cousin watched 
Each slightest move; and noticed he was yielding, 
Then she plied her every art. And once 
She won: ardently he kissed her lips. 
Which she resented with such instant warmth 
Of womanly instinct and such artlessness. 
That he was quite enamored. 

When that evening, 
Miriam told the mother her success, 
That she was sure to conquer, that slowly she 
Was gaining ground; her face was wildly aglow, 
For she had chafed with all the eagerness 
Of a physician over a dying man, 
In the hope of marking symptoms of a change. 

These had been cruel days for the good mother, 
Days full of anxious longing for her son. 
The cheerfulness, though all assumed, had helped 
To lift the burden somewhat; however, it 
Was heavy to bear; and Jean, if he had studied 

80 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Closely, might have seen the change; but he 
Had such unbounded faith in his old mother, 
He had not questioned her. 

For the following day, 
There was planned for him and Miriam, drive 
Far through the country to a lonely lake, 
A picnic dinner, a return at night. 
She felt the day of days for her had come; 
All would be settled ere the trip was ended. 
The sun was lighting up the morning splendors 
When she awoke. All spoke of love: the birds 
Among the trees, the bleating of the lambs. 
The lowing of the cattle on the hills. 
The waking light of morn with its hundred hopes. 
Never the day had broken more serene 
Nor full of hope for her; her fluffiest gown 
But veiled her faultless form ; she was aglow 
In every fiber of her perfect being. 
Sacred to her was love, although she labored 
Hard to win it ; pure her heart, though set 
With hasty frivolous ways. This seemed to her 
The nick of time, and she had never felt 
In happier buoyant mood, nor been more certain 
Of easy success. 

They started on their journey 
Merrily. Miriam was at her best; 
But Jean was nervous, weighing hidden thoughts, 
And painting pictures, though above it all 
Miriam kept him cheerful. Who can tell 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



What one day will bring forth? The clearest sky 
Is oft beset with storm and gale when least 
Expected; one small gram oft turns the balance; 
So one thought or slight event may shift the course 
Of a life. Miriam watched the wavering balance 
Of his mind, and wherefore threw her vigorous self 
Wholehearted against his citadel. 

They met 
A messenger upon the way, who handed 
Jean a telegram. She knew its meaning. 
And consternation filled her breast, for she 
Had never seen him look so ashy pallid 

Nor so intense. It seemed his mind had gone 

Upon a long and distant journey alone; 

He ceased to breathe and Miriam thought him dying. 

Throwing her arms hurriedly about his neck, 

She kissed the paleness from his brow, and left 

A tear upon his cheek. His color came 

And went; and smiling quite confusedly. 

He slowly passed the telegram to her. 

She read: 'The call has come. A letter follows.' 

As when the lightning breaks at silent midnight, 
And illumines an instant every separate object 
Under heaven; so truths break on us sometimes 
Unawares, and set our brains afire. Her doom 
She saw that instant, and he felt her thought; 
Though knew not how she understood the meaning. 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Confused he pondered; and Miriam was mirthless, 
The rosebud in her cheek had turned a lily; 
And she sat likewise dreaming over again 
The olden dreams, fearful to fathom the future. 
An hour ago, the past held not a charm. 
All hope was on the rainbow dreams to come. 
Strange when in trouble, we retreat within 
The harbor of the past; but when hope beckons. 
We are ever out upon the open sea, 
Looking in faith for some far distant port. 

Jean: 

When knew you first I was a Volunteer? 

Miriam: 
The evening you told your father. 

Jean: 

And Mother? 

Miriam: 
She was the first to bear the news to me. 



83 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



VIII 

There is a limit to the strength of any will; 
The oak is shattered by too strong a blast; 
And earth, it seems, has ever thrown its storms 
Most stinging against its staunchest souls, and not 
A few have crashed in ruin beneath the strain. 

Why bring to life a day so rich in promise 
In its morning hour, and yet so black 
With storm ere yet the sun had half way reached 
The zenith of the sky? Why lift the curtain 
On a scene that drags with nothingness 
To its drawn tedious close? One thing alone 
The day holds for us, a promise Miriam would 
Not tell the parents of the telegram. 
The next day came and went as one may turn 
The blank page of a book between two chapters. 
The third day brought the tardy letter Jean 
Had waited now for half a hundred hours. 
Each hour a year in his expectancy. 
For Miriam, each separate minute was crowded; 
Every scheme her brain could plan was marshalled 
For the final trial of the conflict; win or die, 
She said within her soul: there is no chasm 
A woman will not leap for one she loves. 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean read his letter without any sign; 

Though deep within a silent voice said, Go. 

God gives to every man, if he will heed 

Its call, a voice within, a pilot, 

A guiding angel to lead him over the sands 

And shoals of life, that no power under heaven 

Can turn aside or strangle out of him. 

The letter said to 'Come at once ; and Jean 

Had answered, yes, to some deep-seated cry, 

But on his face it left not any trace, 

For he put on his jauntiest air, and spent 

The day as one may counterfeit his last 

Hour with his dearest friends in merriest mirth. 

But Miriam saw and knew the part he played ; 

And she kept saying over within herself, 

I will win or die; the lion within her heart 

Knew no defeat. And thus the day wore old; 

And this is what she scheming planned against Jean: 

She would lead him afield, under the spell of the moon, 

With every known wile of a woman's being 

Would lure his passion beyond the clutch of his will, 

Would set the day of the marriage; thus she sought 

To crush the man she thought she truly loved. 

When friendship walks along, hand clasped in hand 

With love, the chiming melodies of earth 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Resound their twin-born footsteps; but alone 
Love ofttimes strikes the harshest discord known. 

And while she thus was plotting, all unknown, 
Jean wandered unaccompanied across the fields; 
And sitting down beside the pensive brook, 
He wrote his diary of his past life: 

Our days crash by, like waves upon the beach. 
The rhythmic pulsebeats of our restless lives. 
Each brings its mystic mellowed secrets forth 
Out of the bosom of the unfathomed deep, 
And lays them like bright shells upon the shore. 
And we, as boisterous wondering children, leap 
In hope to find the pearl of untold worth, 
As spent, the water leaves the glistening sands. 

Our life is liquid, ever restless on 

And ever on it takes its endless way. 

'Tis born far up the mountain's starry summit, 

And trickles down as pure as liquid dew, 

Distilled from lily bells and caught on sands 

Of diamonds. It leaps and laughs, and pours 

Its glad wild life in ripply cheer and song. 

Tipping the trailing ivy and the sturdy oak 

Alike to life. Over cataracts it leaps 

To rainbow-shaded pools, where song birds bathe 

86 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And camivora noiseless slake their scorching thirst. 

In discontent, it loses now itself 

In tangled woods, overtopped with spreading boughs, 

Hedged in by tractless wastes of foliage. 

For many miles its silvery thread is lost 

Save to the lonely flower and wilderness. 

Yet, gathering up the moisture of a thousand hills, 

It proclaims itself at length across the plains, 

Catching the murmuring voice of brow-creased toil. 

Standing aloof, yet still flowing along 

In noiseless majesty and powerful sweep. 

Watering all the countless lowing herds 

Of clover-scented cattle from the hills. 

Carrying on its bosom many lives. 

Floating the commerce of a busy world. 

Sharing its life with all who come its way. 

As on and on and ever on again 

It restless sweeps to meet the embracing ocean, 

To lose itself within the cooling depths. 

As one who comes down to his favorite brook 

Each day to glance upon its glassy depths. 

To pick a pebble here, a rose leaf there, 

In silent meditation; so I come 

Now at the old life's close, where many times 

I have loitering spent an hour in quiet shade, 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Each day a different stream, yet ever the same, 
And open the last time the diary 
Of my past life and leaf it slowly through. 
To bathe the blurred page in a tender tear, 
To laugh in childish freedom over the joy. 
To catch the motive, to glean out the gold. 

Here on the fly leaf is a pregnant prayer, 

Too sacred to repeat to common ears, 

Too poorly lived to more than mention, still 

The bulwark and the strength of the spent past. 

I pity him who has no prayer; his life 

Is rudderless; it drifts and leaps, is lost. 

And never brings its cargo into port. 

Here is set down a failure; read between 
The lines: Who has no failure to record. 
Lives on the lowest level; he who sees 
No blot where he at times pours out his tears. 
Is nothing better than a babbling brute. 

Here stands success, in bold and careless scrawl; 

Success, that wide-mouthed, much sought, dangerous 

word; 

The thought that tingles every smallest vein, 

That ofttimes sells us from our better selves; 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



The deed that is the paragon of gods. 

Yet he who never writes that word, knows not 

The feathery footsteps of the thought that soars, 

By wild imagination spurred and whipped. 

To an ideal in highest ether, set 

In matchless diadems of untold worth. 

And he who never flies ahead of time. 

Upon the wings of thought, to that high mount 

Where dwell the truly great, never half knows 

The witchery of that which beckons all 

Before they draw themselves up in their might 

To the summit, clothed with honor and true greatness. 

And here in shaded silence stands a sin; 

The page is blurred, the leaf is torn and smudged 

With much of misery and secret sorrow. 

Sin is such a blight; could one be free 

From all that worries, wastes him and distracts, 

From all that draws him out of perfect poise. 

The world would wondering lay its tributes all 

Low at his feet; he would be a faultless god. 

Temptation has its use; it keeps one humble; 

The tree is strengthened, flinging back the blasts; 

The fungus grows in one brief night beneath 

A rift of roses, drinking in the dew. 

Naught to disturb it; but the sun awakens, 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And it is withered in as short an hour 
As it was born: all that exists resists. 
Give me a firmer root, a stronger bole, 
O oak, to fight back to the billowy bottom 
Of the pit, the varied temptations around 
Me flung; I seek no easy virtues. 

Here on a page, the best of all the book, 

Is told a secret tale no one has shared, 

A good deed done to one in sorest need, 

A life plucked from the clutch of sin and death. 

He who turns o'er the pages of his life 

And finds no good deed there, were better dead; 

From memory, the storehouse of our acts. 

Holds nothing but what is best; the wrong it gilds 

With fancy, till footsore it weary toils 

To tinge the wrong with right, to shield the truth 

Until the conscience lies a blasted ruin. 

Each worthy deed of good has but one root, 

But many branches, where are hung bright torches 

For the lives of countless blinded men, 

Who groping otherwise would lose their way; 

But seeing these, the path is plain and light. 

And he who does the deed is doubly blest; 

His dreams are pleasant, set with radiant stars; 

His days go in continual melody; 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Nothing distracts him: labor's glowing seal 
Is on his features, and a sunny smile 
That shrivels all the baseness that it meets, 
Is on his face; where good is done, joy reigns. 

As when a painter comes at end of years 

Down from his studio, unsatisfied 

With his poor daubings, for unhurried hours 

To view the master minds of all the years, 

Spread through the treasured galleries of art, 

To tune his senses to a higher thought 

And to a nobler aim ; so I have left 

Behind the cares for this untroubled time 

To catch a sincerer smile, more winsome ways. 

As now I grasp the clean unlettered book 

Of the new life fresh from the hand of time. 

What shall I write across its title page? 

A thousand tempting headings arise to view: 

Wealth, power, fame, learning, selfishness, and greed. 

And many more; but someone seems to stand 

And peer in eagerness at what I write; 

I hear a low voice pleading whisper, set down 

These words: For love of God and man. 

And so half blurred with ecstacy and tears, 

Well knowing I can only hope to reach 

91 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



A little way into their unknown height, 
I humbly scrawl them out across the page, 
And my life's diary is hid away 
In my heart's secret chamber, as I go 
To mingle in the crush and grind of life. 

The evening came, and with it Miriam 

Unloosed her luring net of frenzied passion. 

Into the moonshine centuries unceasing. 

Have dazed lovers wandered, babbling vows 

Of unpremeditated destiny. 

Born of Aphrodite and raptured Venus. 

They wandered arm in arm, Miriam leading. 

Sighing her hopes of unconstrained love. 

The mazy world of silvery enchantment 

Beckoned their senses afar to the pointed stars: 

The blue-eyed myrtle, the red-lipped rose, the poppy 

Golden-crowned, wove their spell upon the heart. 

The whispering spirits among the trees breathed love. 

The dancing fairies of the fields sparkled 

With passion overwrought, the naiades 

Of the brook babbled a liquid litany 

Learned from a warmer and more lofty planet. 

Let virtue be praised for this: if one has lived 

His best in calm and secret when no eye 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Was near, if one has plodded on through weary 

Hours when dull monotony said, do 

The thing he should not do, if one has kept 

His bearings wheresoever he has sailed in calm 

Or storm, then when great crises come, as come 

They must, for one short instant 

Ere he yields his will, right looks him squarely 

In the face and shows the way of escape. 

Jean lay himself to rest but not to sleep; 

His hand-bag packed, the little note to place 

Upon his plate, 'A Volunteer'; the ten 

Long miles whither the train set south at dawn. 

He slowly dreamed the old dreams over again, 

Their laughter and their tears, their sunshine 

And their shadows; smiling at times, at times 

With firm-set jaw, at times in quiet peace 

That visits little children, and at times 

In the bitter storm of agony that comes 

To those who try in deeds their noblest thoughts. 

At midnight, silently he left the house; 

And as the latch clicked after him, he heard 

The wail of unrequited love, and felt 

The burning gaze that trailed his vanishing form; 

But he walked steadily forth, nor turned nor wavered. 

93 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



IX 

Jean: (musing) 

I feel as though my soul had been upon 

A toilsome, long and distant journey, alone; 

Had known a land of wondrous melodies; 

And meditation lingers now and weeps 

To find no friend who likewise has been there, 

For nothing is of worth to any man 

Unless he finds some friend with whom to share it. 

Life to me has been a lonely voyage 

Upon an unknown sea, and unaccompanied; 

Or am I dreaming? Has my mind lost sway, 

And is imagination tricking me? 

Old hill, here my brave sires have lived and died; 

Here once the yule log held the cheery fire. 

And happy voices echoed loud and long; 

Here ran the brook, and threaded through the hills 

This selfsame course ; here years have set at naught 

The steady-nerved and sturdy-sinewed men. 

Have laid them in their feebled shrouds; and now 

Six feet of earth has healed the ragged wound 

The earth needs suffered for their resting place; 

And time speeds on, forgetful they have lived. 

All that remains of them is in the offspring 

94 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Of their lives and bodies; happy the man 

Who sows the world with noble deed and thought; 

No grave will ever mark the dust of him 

Who has enthroned the truth within his life; 

He will live on in others evermore. 

Old hill, I am older by a million years 

Than you ; and you, who knows how long, have stretched 

Your arms across the fields, have held in check 

The brook, have lifted high the gnarled oaks 

In air, have nestled in your lap the golden 

Grain. Your fruitage is the sward that grows 

Upon your upheaved breast; long centuries 

Ago I passed you as I journeyed on 

To higher realms; and now my fruitage is 

My character, and soul too subtle to 

Be held within your groping clay, I carry. 

And now, old hill, rich in the treasured past, 

I have come to say good-bye to you and yours 

Of long ago. You stand and easily 

Defy the fickle years; but I go on 

And change my course with every shift of moon. 

I am pained I cannot live with you my life. 

And lay me down at last to slumber on 

Your maternal breast, content to dream forever. 

95 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Long may you hold the sacred dust of those 
Who sleep the careless sleep of centuries. 
Oft you have watched me in my romping play, 
Have held my truant footprints in your sands, 
Oft you have laughed at my wild childish pranks, 
Oft you have scolded me when I did wrong. 
Now I must kiss you ere I say good-bye, 
As I was wont, when but a prattling child, 
To kiss the fairy souls of the dreaming rosebuds 
That you entwined upon your furrowed brow. 
And then with all the simple tenderness 
And innocence and faith of a sweet child, 
He laid him on his face and kissed the sward 
Of the old hill, where reverie so many 
Years had pictured home and the varied joys 
Of those who live beneath the open sky. 

He arose, and turning saw the cross his body 

Had imprinted on the dewy grass. 

And then the awful stillness of the night 

Intensified his utter loneliness 

And utter worthlessness ; he felt as felt 

The first lone man when the first night came down, 

Not knowing that again there would be day. 

But as the fever in his blood grew cool, 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



The sweetest breath of heaven that ever fanned 
His parched forehead, came to him. It said: 

Out of the inmost depths I come, 
A silent guest, 

Quietly here at your side I stand 
With pierced breast; 
Once I was lonely and burdened with fear, 
Then all forsook me and no one was near; 
Once I was wearied and sad evermore, 
Viewing earth's travail and sin's open sore. 
More subtle than wisdom, more precious than gold; 
The crown of earth's treasures in me you shall hold. 
More fragrant than perfume that wastes in the dew 
Of the first opening rosebud when morning is new. 



97 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



I will walk at your side o'er the rugged way; 
Your burdens I'll carry, nor cause you delay, 
I will be your friend in the darkest night, 
And share your joys at their loftiest flight; 
Come, let us go, life is ever ahead; 
Hope haloes the future, the past is now dead; 
Come let us go, care will fade from our sight, 
In the service we render, all burdens are light; 
Come, let us go, there is nothing to fear; 
God rules the future, the sky must be clear: — 

Out of the imseen depths I come, 
A silent friend; 

Quietly here at your side let me live, 
Our lives to blend. 

And thus they started through the wasting night 

Ten miles to where the train set south at dawn; 

To work a time among the colleges. 

To later sail for China o'er the seas. 

One was unseen ; the other's face was aglow 

With a strange and shining radiance; he went 

As years before, his sire had gone to fight 

For truth, for God and his downtrodden world. 

Only no nimble fife was there to cheer 

The weary heart, no throng was there to inspire; 

08 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



The God of peace and love and sympathy, 
With stainless banner and unsullied life, 
Was leading him forth, bravely to do and to dare. 
And as they journeyed on, these words consoled 
Him many times, although he could not know 
The fulness of their meaning yet for years: 

We walk along together. 

My Lord and I, 
Sharing our sorrows and our joys 

Continually ; 
We laugh with those who laugh. 
We weep with those who mourn, 
And lend a helping hand to those 
Who lamely travel on forlorn. 

My Lord keeps watch upon me 

With piercing glance, 
Delving into my secret thoughts 

As we advance; 
I look but at the things I know 
His eye would have me see, 
I turn my back on sin and shame, 
When lust and greed conspire with me. 



99 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



I pity with the pity 

He showers on me, 
Knowing without his sympathy, 

I would not be free; 
I love with his abounding love. 
The most unlovely that we meet; 
And thus together on we go. 
Unselfishly and indiscreet. 



100 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



The shout of 'All ashore who are going ashore!' 

The scurry of the last prolonged farewells; 

The clatter of the trucks; the grating gangway 

As the small isthmus drags itself from shore; 

The uttermost confusion, sorrow, tears. 

And then the silent vibrant life of the ship, 

Its every sinew throbbing with pregnant life. 

Anxious to fight its course o'er the challenging sea. 

The tugs, nosing the prow, sputter and sweat 

To turn the quiet, huge, majestic vessel 

Which peacefully smiles down upon their effort. 

The captain shouts command, the tugs retreat, 

The ship tingles anew with sudden energy, 

And all the lesser craft, bustling and screaming. 

Steer athwart the shore with brooding fear. 

Slowly the pier recedes, the waving kerchiefs 

Already beckon from a foreign shore; 

As the land retreats, the dimpled ocean smiles. 

Jean paced the deck, a million miles from home, 
In utter isolation scanned the crowds; 
With fingers clenched and burning banished heart, 
He watched his native land slowly diminish. 



101 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: (musing) 
I am neither in the world nor out of it; 
Sadness and happiness are of the past; 
A sort of philosophic pensiveness 
Clutches my soul, throttles my loftier feelings. 

Ambition, pride and petty jealousy 

Contend for mastery of the aging earth. 

Men are but hapless toads which witless leap 

Aboard some resting airship; seeing their motion. 

In vanity they croak, 'How we do fly.' 

The future, lying within the growing womb 

Of universal time, beckons them on, 

As sin-scarred as a cursed prenatal babe. 

The past amazed, survives in motley mein, 

Carrying diverse its shifting temperament. 

Clouting it on the shoulders of the present. 

Unsmudged, my finer sensibility 

Silences the bestial riot and the din 

Within my secret soul, delves into the past, 

Peers at the lives of those who have conquered, 

Engraves their images upon my heart, 

Filters the truth, discards the symbolism, 

Spurs my abated spirit on to the conquest. 



102 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Four years ago, I started to reform the world; 

And unsophisticated, lavished my life, 

Poured out my arterial blood as if 'twere water, 

Wasted my youthful vigor and optimism, 

Lost in my languor, my footing among the stars. 

Luckily I have had my meagre fling at fame, 

Have stood before men, have silenced the mean and 

vulgar, 
Have lorded it over my narrow, local sphere, 
Been oft proclaimed among my superiors; 
And yet, how little and how mean I feel. 
Selfish and petty, I have barked at bawds. 
Kicked clownish knaves, and made myself a scourge. 
And now I sail away with saddened visage. 
And the world wags forward, forgetful I have fought. 
Gnaws its materialism and battened riots, 
Iconoclastic, crumbles my cherished idols. 

A little woman, prematurely aged, 

Smiled through a death mask, that unseen proclaimed 

The burial of withered blighted hopes. 

And when she spoke, in the liquid wine of her speech, 

A helpless wail crept out behind each word, 

Flavoring all she said with banishment. 

She sat unnoticed, marking the restless Jean; 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



With tears half-stifled, though with hopes alert, 
She saw the youthful man whom she had known, 
Laughter-loving and brave, care-free and wavering. 
Now brow-contracted and tragic in his manner, 
Half-thwarted and bowed in his forlorn aspect. 

When he abruptly halted as if by magic. 

And thrust his fiery face down at her own. 

Her blinded eyes were conscious of his features. 

She seemed to hear him stammer, 'Lillian', 

As she fell limp and headlong on the deck. 

As she awoke from stupor, she dreamed she uttered 

The name long clasped within her inmost heart. 

Her opening eyes leapt wildly around the circle 

Of downturned faces, then wearily reposed. 

For Jean had vanished, fearing publicity, 

Excusing his absence to fetch the ship's physician. 

When he returned, dragging the cursing doctor, 

Lillian sat silent and white, peering into 

The blue of the mingling blended sky and sea. 

The matronly woman whose kindly arm sustained her. 

Stared at Jean as though she believed him a villain. 

The physician, bursting with anger, took the pulse. 

Spat the word, 'fainted', then stalked away. 

Commanding that she retire to her stateroom. 

Jean stood aside as the woman led her within. 

104 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Through the slow evening and far into the night, 
The lonely man patrolled the friendless deck, 
Gazed at the billowy foam, studied the stars, 
Mused and was silent, brooding over his past. 
Dreaming of golden hair and eyes of blue. 

Jean : (musing) 
How came she hither, and why? Perchance 
By fate. As the wise God ordains, no doubt. 
For years I have lived, sealing my bursting heart. 
Lying with separate mind unto my soul. 
Crushing my heart out with my deluded head. 
Surely 'twas not through knowledge of me she came. 
Our lives are not our own to will and do; 
God leads us though we see no guiding hand. 
He knew the empty throb of my shriveled heart. 
Knew of the struggle that would go on for years. 
Pitied perchance his blind and erring child. 

Next morning, ere 'twas day, as the rifted clouds 
Purpled, reddened, glowed, with awaking Aurora, 
Two figures stood at the prow, their eyes toward the 

East, 
Their senses full of the swish and swirl of the ocean. 



105 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 
How came you hither so unexpectedly? 

Lillian : 
I came following blindly the way God led; 
Fearing, trembling, doubting the call of duty. 

Jean: 
Are you the Lillian I knew of yore, 
The sunny girl — 

Lillian : 
I am at last a woman! 
The way has been so long, the path so steep, 
So briny have been the tears, so sad the smiles, 
That I fear I am a very different creature. 

Jean: 

Tell me about your past. 

Lillian : 

I have no past; 

You opened my soul, and since I have steadfast kept 

My eyes toward the East, my mind on the growing 

future. 

I have steadily buried in tears my yesterdays, 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



For after you all other men were mean 
And hungry-eyed with greed. 

Jean: 

I seem to hear, 
But understand not. 

Lillian : 

Hear then and know 
From mine own lips: you thought me a simpering girl; 
I saw myself reflected in your eyes; 
And then I saw what you would have me be; 
And from this knowledge, there grew a struggling wo- 
man, 
Created from the thought within your breast. 

i 

Jean: 

This is strange indeed; the simpering girl. 
With sunny smiles and laughing, roguish eyes. 
Has been within the depth of my hidden heart. 
The sole possession of my recurring dreams. 
I have woven her spirit in rhyme for memory: 



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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Thornless and fragrant, pure and white, 

These were the roses she wore last night; 

At the close of only another day, 

Their fragrance has vanished, their petals decay; 

A year they lived for one brief hour; 

The spreading leaf, the opening flower, 

Ate the sunshine, drank the dew, 

And glancing upward, ever grew; 

Life and youth flowed through their being, 

Blindly groping, without seeing 

Who should wear them near her heart. 

Who should kiss them with lips apart. 



108 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And she who wore the roses white, 

Dancing and smiling bloomed last night; 

For twenty summers she has grown, 

Has wildly wondered, yet never has known; 

As a wind which bloweth out of the sky, 

From whence none knows nor questions why, 

The mystery of love is blind, 

The senses are cloyed and clouded the mind ; 

And she with a modest and winsome grace; 

With an airy bearing and innocent face, 

Felt the sting as of an arrow. 

And knew youth's love though not love's sorrow; 

And I who wore her near my heart. 

Tenderly kissed her with lips apart. 

Lillian : 
Your heart felt this; your mind rebelled; religion 
Palsied the struggling deed. 

Jean: 

These same two eyes. 
Tinged like the sea where yonder waking sun 
Breaks through a rift of cloud, illumined my dreams; 
This soothing voice pierced my closed ears as this prow 
The waves, with a liquid laughter. 

109 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Lillian : 

So you thought, 
Enchanted by my absence; but had I 
Been near you, nausea would have repelled you. 

Jean: 

How came you hither so unexpectedly? 

Lillian : 
To minister to those in sore distress. 

Jean: 

Strange, indeed! 

Lillian : 

Strange that you should think it thus; 
For woman ever has been God's ministering angel. 

Jean: 
But you were so removed from seriousness, 
So engrossed with life. 

Lillian : 

The heart is louder than 

The head when God listens; the life more weighty 

Than the lips when Jehovah holds the trembling balance; 

no 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Preaching is pious and wise; living is lax 
And faulty in the eyes of man ; the male 
Is wise, the female foolish ; thus it has been 
Since time began. 

Jean: 
But tell me how you came 
Hither? 

Lillian : 
When I went home from finishing college, 
I was near mad with anguish; thwarted in love, 
My passions shackled; ambitionless and fickle, 
I tried to die. My father wished me to marry 
His junior partner, thrifty, young and handsome; 
But ever your image flitted between our faces, 
Dazzled my eyes; I refused, therefore, his offer. 
My father, perplexed and angered, tried to force 
His will upon me, but I flatly refused 
To yield. Had mother been alive, I would 
Have fared less foul; but a lone and helpless child. 
My father crushed me and I fled from home. 

A crumpled, half-blown rosebud, I thrust myself 

Among strangers, writhing in pain and anguish. 

Smarting beneath your stinging accusation 

Of worthlessness, I resolved to be of use 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



In the world; utterly abandoning my selfish past, 

I became a nurse, ministered unto the sick 

And dying, wasted my willing energy 

Day after day, and night after sleepless night. 

During the busy while, I read many books 

Of the awakening heart of the fossilized, mummified 

Orient ; 
Thought of my fabled knight of the Chinese dragon. 
God quietly whispered through the written page 
His plan for my unsettled life, confided it to me 
In silence ever more golden as time advanced. 
I promised to follow the way that seemed to him best. 

One day a message came which told that Father 

Was stricken. I hastened breathless home to his hearth. 

Only to find him dying the death of a miser. 

After I left him, he made his money his god. 

Cursed all things else, nor received the comfort of any; 

Left a curious will whereby I was 

Deprived of half the estate unless I married. 

And when I stoutly refused the numerous offers, 

People thought me deranged, crazed by my creed. 

And when I later gave the whole estate 

Without reserve, to found in the depths of China 

A medical mission, my relatives had me detained 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



On the charge of being insane, hoping thus 
To secure a share of my wealth. Within the asylum, 
God spake again unto my questioning spirit; 
And I in answer promised to obey. 
The voice straightway replied, thy gift in gold 
Is dross unless thou givest thyself, go thou 
With thy life to minister unto the needy. 
And then after several months, the tardy law, 
Helmeted in greed, besmirched with bribes, 
Grasping after my wealth, came to the rescue. 
Released at length, I hastened on my journey; 
And thus far I have come. 

Jean: 

Let us go back; 
The heathen are at home and not in China; 
Ananias rules, and all the covetous world 
Yields him its tribute in lies. 

Lillian : 

God rules the world; 
We are his ministers, and though we give 
Our bodies to be burned, and have not love 
For our bitterest enemies, it profiteth nothing. 



113 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 

Can you forgive the greed, the selfishness, 
The vice? My spirit bums — 

Lillian : 

They know not what 
They do ; they see but countless shadows, weird, 
Distorted — 

Jean: 
They make no attempt to see the truth. 

Lillian : 
Judge them not; in God's scheme of the world 
Their places are as needful as ours. — But how 
Came you upon this journey? 

Jean: 

I came alone, 
Worm-eaten by loneliness and stifled passion, 
Railing against the world, discouraged quite 
With myself, unnerved and sad. 

Lillian : 

Turn then to singing! 
God rules our imperfect lives; his world is won, 

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The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Not through the blating blare of honking horns, 

Nor through the gaudy gear of proclamation; 

But silently, obscurely, meanly clad, 

His minions go stealing the hearts of men from error. 

Our service is his hope ; our little lives 

Will echo around the world, it will be told 

In centuries to come, that we were salt 

To the stench of the wicked. 

Jean : 

My pride is withered and dead; 
Once I traversed the stars of the milky way; 
Now I grovel impotent. 

Lillian: 
Something for months has whispered 
That you had need of me. God told me as much; 
In the silent hours of my life, I heard your want: 
The despair of loneliness, the need of a friend. 
I will be to you a loyal sister. 

Jean: 

A wife! 

Lillian : 

Nay, that I cannot be; God told me as much 

115 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



When he led me forth; I have work in the world to do, 
A message to proclaim. 

Jean: 

Heard you aright? 

Lillian: 
I did! No man must fetter my usefulness; 
I have a place that no one else can fill. 

i 

Jean: 
I have a place I cannot fill unaided; 
I need the constant wine of your singing soul; 
My spirit has shrivelled not finding its kindred being. 
You must consent to help me, for alone 
I am a groveling worm; with your support, 
I could stand erect. 

Lillian : 

Ever the old excuse: 
Out of the endless past, the perishing man 
Cries for a woman's staff; and then straightway 
Tramples her pitiless under the cruel heel 
Of his ambition. 



116 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



Jean: 
We are to be companions; 
You shall have your work and I shall have mine; 
Alone we are but half ourselves, but together, we 
Would be happy and wholesome, strewing the world with 
joy. 

Thus they filled the day with argument till even. 

Lillian, entering her room alone, reclined, 

Troubled, wavering, fearing, groping for light. 

God in the silence spoke, and hushed her trembling heart. 

Jean struggled over his pleasureless past; 

And after a time, his feeling found a voice, 

And poured its tempest out in verse ; at last, 

After what seemed eternities, the morning 

Awakening smiled as Jean recounted his past. 

Jean: 
Here again, I have brought my little verses ; 
They have grown out of my bitter, sorrowing life. 



117 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



As one who girdles all alone the earth, 

Returning finds no sympathizing ear 

His strange wild tales of land and sea to hear, 

Finds no response in story or in mirth, 

Sits disappointed at his lonely hearth. 

And dreams of old familiar faces dear, 

That once were wont to lend their hearty cheer. 

But now are gone, robbing from life its worth: 

So I, a traveler, trod life's lonely way 

Until your hidden heart unclosed to me; 

That instant leapt my soul to greet the day; 

Instinctively we soon were far at sea; 

Our lives, adrift so long in lands unknown, 

Had traversed the same continents alone. 



118 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



How many were the years I searched for you, 
Wondering and fearing lest in land and sea 
No soul were rhymed with mine in tide and lea, 
The anxious while my life the lonelier grew; 
I grappled from the surging throng a few 
Sweet souls that came in trust and joy to me. 
Thinking our spirits would in love agree, 
But faltering did my airy hopes eschew : 
In you I find the lodestone of my heart, 
And as the needle swings unto its pole, 
So ever will my life its flame impart, 
And evermore will seek your potent soul: 
What matters though the waiting years were long. 
Our ship sings through the spray, and love is strong. 



119 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



You smiling loved me in your woman's way: 
Life's compensation then was manifest, 
The meaning of the years filled me with zest: 
I knew why pain along the journey lay, 
Why loneliness and sighs did me assay, 
I saw why goodness battled within my breast, 
Why fitful life would know no peace or rest, 
Why mother pressed my baby lips to pray: 
All strove that I might offer you a life, 
Forewarned by stumbling near the hidden brink 
Of ruin, poised to meet life's certain strife. 
Unsullied that my lips love's joys might drink; 
All strove thus long that home for you and me 
A perfect haven of hopefulness should be. 



120 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



We quarreled, and then for years misunderstood; 
My wounded breast burned in a silent flame, 
Consuming its own smoke; do not it blame, 
Man ever hides the passions that him flood; 
Your woman's heart wrote in its bickering blood 
The record of the fears it could not name, 
The tears its yearning passion fought to tame, 
The years it had endured the deadening mood; 
I played the man, and did my thoughts disdain; 
Though I had gladly borne your load and mine 
Could I have saved you any needless pain, 
Have changed the draught of your twice bitter 

wine; 
However, life's blood roses e'er adorn 
A stem beset with many a biting thorn. 



12) 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



I come to offer you my hungry heart; 
It has been feeding on the thought of you 
As a wild red rose is fed by sun and dew, 
It has been famished when we were apart, 
It has suffered many a secret chilling start 
Alone in fear lest love might prove untrue, 
Lest your life's winsome wine should not renew, 
It has been faint fearing love would depart: 
I do not vow love's common noisy vow, 
Nor swear that I will be forever thine, 
I lay my naked soul before you now, 
Words but profane this offering of mine: 
You smile, and in your look of love I see 
Earth rivals paradise for you and me. 



122 



The Knight of the Chinese Dragon. 



And as she read, the tears gushed forth in streams. 

Her heart had conquered, and her spirit knew 

That God smiled, and 'twas morning on the sea 

Of her awakening life. Jean, too, felt the tides 

Of youthful optimism reflood his soul; 

The future beckoned afar with its cheery visage; 

The hunger of years at last was satisfied. 

Each soul had found its harbor; and as the vessel 

Splashed through the spray and bounded over the waves, 

Together their hearts throbbed wildly this refrain: 

Banished together, we sail o'er the sea; 
God is our pilot, and nothing fear we; 
Knitted together by fate's daring hand, 
We laugh o'er the ocean, we leap o'er the strand; 
Teeming with passion, our hearts are aflame, 
Winning the world from its sloth and its shame; 
Fettered to faith and harnessed to hope, 
Love lures us forth in the conquest to cope: 
Banished together we sail o'er the sea ; 
God is our pilot, and nothing fear we. 

The End. 



123 



W 13 



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